A very interesting piece by Daniel Ortner, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is a conservative/libertarian organization
Government regulation of social media would kill the internet — and free speech
Social media companies have been criticized for disproportionately restricting content that offends political progressives. For example, a Pinterest insider recently leaked documents showing that the platform censors pro-life speech as “pornography.†Popular “classical liberal†YouTuber Dave Rubin has complained that his videos are flagged and discriminated against because of alleged “right-wing†content. And Twitter got into hot water last week for suspending the campaign account of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for posting a video of angry protestors assembling outside the senator’s home.
In response, conservative politicians have advocated for greater government regulation and oversight of social media. Last week, reports surfaced that the White House is developing an executive order directed at tech companies such as Facebook and Google, demanding that these sites eliminate “anti-conservative bias.†The exact contours of the executive order are not yet known, but if it in any way resembles recent proposals, anyone who values the free exchange of ideas should run far away from this latest effort to place government oversight on social media and curtail freedom of speech in the name of “fairness.â€
Why shouldn’t the government require these companies to allow access to everyone? Because social media companies are private companies, not government actors, and these companies have their own First Amendment right to exclude anyone from their platforms for any reason at all. The government cannot force these companies to open up their sites and associate with viewpoints that their owners and shareholders find objectionable, any more than it can force you to display government-approved speech on your private property.
It is a good point: these are private companies. Should government actually be regulating how they operate and allow content on their sites?
But anyone with even a modicum of skepticism of government bureaucrats should see that this is a truly awful and unconstitutional idea. It would mean that social media companies would be required to cozy up with these regulators to secure a permit. And control of the board fluctuates based on who controls Congress or the White House, so the continued viability of social media players would be up for reexamination every time the political winds change. Aggrieved members of the public would be allowed to submit complaints and the burden would be on social media companies to refute their claims — placing the companies in the impossible position of having to prove their innocence of every charge.
Even worse, we would be trusting these unelected commissioners to determine whether a particular policy has a disproportionate impact on a “political viewpoint.†Maybe you like the idea of President Trump’s appointees deciding what must or must not be posted on social media — but how will you feel if it’s President Sanders, President Warren, or President Biden?
And there’s the rub. Democrats are super excited about Net Neutrality. Would they like that, among all the other problems, it would be controlled by whomever is in power? Daniel might be over-doing it in his piece, because, let’s face it, these tech companies are acting in bad faith, and often seem to violate their own terms of service, as well as applying them arbitrarily, however, once you start down the Government road, it’s almost impossible to get off. And that road is constantly getting bigger.
