I agree with Russ that the first amendment only applies to the government and does not apply to private companies. Social media companies absolutely do have the right to censor content. Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Youtube and others who proclaim to be neutral platforms not publishers enjoy protection from libel under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for what is posted on their sites. If they were truly neutral platforms that would be fine. However, it could be argued that in their selective censorship of conservative voices they are acting as mouthpieces for far left political thought. Where is their censorship of https://twitter.com/mzdedeee encouraging the killing of police officers, the Ayatollah Khomeini when he advocates for the death of Israel, #KillTrump?
What happened at the capital recently was disgusting, criminal and seditious. The people who broke in are hoodlums and deserve to be punished. I know it is politically incorrect to use the word hoodlum, but hoodlums exist on both sides of the aisle. President Trump’s comments were terrible and made this situation worse. I have noticed that individuals, organizations and media on the right have been highly critical of the president and these hoodlums and rightly so. I did not see this same scrutiny from those on the left concerning the rioting and looting in NY, Chicago, Wisconsin, Portland and Seattle encouraged/sponsored by BLM and Occupy Wall Street. These organizations ironically often used these very same social media platforms in a well-coordinated effort to organize these violent protests. There are good and bad people on both sides of political aisle and in organizations like BLM, Proud Boys, Antifa and Parler. Why is it that social media disproportionately bans content from those on the right?
Under the first amendment, the government cannot censor freedom of expression. However, it is fascist for one party of the government to do this via the back door by corrupting a private industry (social media) to do its bidding.
