by Paul Cienfuegos
In the 60 Minutes episode titled, “A protected right? Free speech and social media,” broadcast on 1/17/2021 there was this brief exchange:
But claiming Big Tech is running afoul of the First Amendment by deplatforming those it deems harmful may be missing the larger point. Is kicking someone off any of these social media platforms an infringement of their free speech rights?
“No, it isn’t. They’re not subject to the First Amendment. They are not the government.”
Daphne Keller directs the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center.
When it comes to digital speech and the First Amendment, she says, it gets messy pretty fast. This isn’t a free speech argument on the part of the users. It’s also a free speech argument on the part of the providers as well, right?
“People who want to sue platforms and force them to carry speech they don’t want to, have a double First Amendment problem. First of all, those people DON’T have a First Amendment claim against the platforms. And second of all, the platforms DO have a First Amendment argument against being forced to carry speech they disagree with.”
So US citizens do NOT have a First Amendment right to sue Facebook Corp or Twitter Corp or other social media platforms, because the First Amendment only protects people from the government interfering in our speech. But – and this is where it gets truly surreal – internet corporations DO have free speech protections. How can this be?! As usual, our major media, be it CBS News or Democracy Now, fail to properly explain what is really going on here. So no wonder We The People are so confused!
Business corporations DO possess free speech protections under the Constitution, as they are defined under law as “corporate persons,” with many of the same constitutional rights as the people possess. And in this specific case, their free speech rights include their right to NOT speak. (You can’t make this stuff up.) This is the crux of the problem, and it’s a BIG problem. Unfortunately, none of our government bodies are doing anything about corporations claiming free speech rights. That’s why groups like Community Rights US exist – to take on and dismantle those corporate “rights” that interfere with The People’s free speech rights.
What is urgently needed is for laws to be passed that strip corporations of their First Amendment free speech rights, and other constitutional rights. If this was achieved, the free speech crisis that we are now experiencing with our social media would be entirely transformed. Powerful new options for reform would be available to us. The sky’s the limit, once We start insisting that corporate constitutional “rights” are not legitimate in a functioning democratic society. The first step is for many of us to start making that powerful paradigm-shifting claim.
Watch the full episode: