The question to the court was that law is permissible under the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause, applicable to the States under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is a question of ACCESS not content. The 1st Amendment guarantees the right to SPEECH, and ACCESS to free speech. The court was very clear that they were NOT making a judgment on content, only if an individual has the right to access, and if the State has the right to limit access based on a past conviction, of if this was a violation of the equal protection clause. States do have the right to limit constitutional rights of convicted felons... many State do not allow convicted felons to vote, or own handguns. These apparent violations of constitutional rights PASS judicial review because the courts, in the past, did not see these limits as violations of the 14th amendment.
I did not mention it because it is not relevant. No one is denying that people should have ACCESS to information available on a public social media platform. The plaintiff in this case was not suing to be allowed to post whatever he wanted, he sued because he was denied access. This is a 1st amendment question but not on speech, but on access.
I do not think I am arguing semantics and I intentionally have not challenged the notion of that social media companies do not have a 'stranglehold', I prefer the legal term 'monopoly' (but I suppose that is semantics as well, sorry). Maybe they do? But so far the courts have not ruled in that way, and if it is determined they do indeed have a monopoly to solution is to break them up to open competition for other platforms.
Well in truth I am not arguing that point I take it as a fact in evidence. They are a private company and they can do what ever they want provided they are not violating laws. They can not LEGALLY discriminate against classes of people identified in Civil Rights Law... political opinion is not a protected class. If you want to make the argument they should be... well then take it to court... let the judges decide.
Your freedom of association is not dictated by a social media platform. You are free to believe and say whatever you like in a PUBLIC forum. You are arguing that social media is a defacto public forum.... again.... take it to court and let the courts decide. So far they have been reluctant to rule on this, or better yet let congress start the process of amending the Constitution to clearly define the cyberspace as a public forum. Then it will not be up to the courts. I really don't think Facebook or any other social media platform would seriously object to this, because then they would be relieved of any responsibility. If some SJW group starts hamming them with boycott threats, they can just turn to the and say "Sorry, it's the law... call you congressional representative."
Well... I have never argued that they are 'publishers' in fact neither have they. They claim they are 'newspaper boys' delivering a 'paper' or a 'print shop' printing what is delivered to them. They don't publish anything, they allow a platform that is it.
Well now on this we agree.
Most of your post is simply splitting hairs. Thank you, it's on first amendment, whether it is speech or access matters not, it is still a first amendment issue.
The heart of the matter is allowing people to be heard. If you agree it's a monopoly and should be broken up, then you have to follow that out to it's logical conclusion, which is they are not allowed to block people based on their political ideologies. While political affiliation is not a protected class as stipulated by other groups, this is yet another strawman argument. Either you support groups, whatever their grouping or labeling is, not being discriminated against or you don't.
That's the spirit of these laws, to ensure that someone who identifies as liberal, conservative, black, white, latino, lgbtxyz or whatever, can't be discriminated against. So with your logic, I simply relabel a group as something else and I can discriminate against them, since it isn't specifically referred to by law. Again, you have to be even in the application of your logic. If you allow discrimination against one group, even if not technically identified by law at the moment, you logically, ethically and morally have to allow discrimination against any group. You can't pick and play favorites.
Facebook has argued that they are merely a platform in public and use publisher's laws to protect them in court. So they are playing both sides of the fence. In public, they are agnostic (or so they claim) and in court they use publisher laws that support them to win their case. In truth, they are run by a particular political persuasion masquerading as a "social" media platform, when they only allow voices that are inside their echo chamber. However, they built their business and fortune by allowing all to have a say, now they want to change all the rules after they have all the control.
What's really happening, quite honestly, is that this is a battle for the soul of this country. Are we going to allow liberals, communists, fascists, SJWs to dictate common sense, logic, fairness and equality or are we going to let western men decide what the future will look like. Will western men take the mantle and the inheritance that has been bequeathed to them by their forefathers or will they shrink from the battle, too afraid to be branded a bigot, homophobe, misogynist or other SJW label used to shut people and conversations down?
These communists have been busy at all levels, social, educational and government. They have destroyed generations of western men and turned them into soy boys, too afraid to be labeled toxic or some other bullsh*t feminist label. Make no mistake though, if western men lose this battle, the west will fall and devolve back into the dark ages, deluged by all the nonsense.
