[programmarchy]

This is a weak argument, nitpicking semantics. Virtual spaces are protected, too. [1] Telephone systems and television cable systems are not technically "areas" either, yet have protections under the first amendment.

Furthermore, you contradict YouTube's own mission statement:

> Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.

> We believe people should be able to speak freely, share opinions, foster open dialogue, and that creative freedom leads to new voices, formats and possibilities.

> We believe everyone should have a chance to be discovered, build a business and succeed on their own terms, and that people—not gatekeepers—decide what’s popular.

[1] First Amendment Architecture, Wisconsin Law Review, Vol. 2012, No. 1, 2012, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1791125

[dragonwriter]

> Telephone systems and television cable systems are not technically "areas" either, yet have protections under the first amendment.

Users of telephone systems have free speech protections against the operator of those systems not because of the first amendment (and especially not because of applications of that to physical common areas against private property owners, which applications don't actually exist—the First Amendment has specifically and repeatedly been held not to apply even in that case against the property owner), but because of common carrier regulations.

> Furthermore, you contradict YouTube's own mission statement:

YouTube's PR has very little impact on how constitutional law applies to it.

[programmarchy]

You keep editing your comments, so not sure what I'm responding to anymore. Anyway, I think it's disingenuous to argue that YouTube is not a common space, given that's how they describe themselves and how any reasonable person would describe their platform. Then to argue that virtual spaces are not protected by the first amendment contradicts the principles of free speech, and recent case law.

[dragonwriter]

> Then to argue that virtual spaces are not protected by the first amendment contradicts the principles of free speech, and recent case law.

Since the citation upthread notes that even physical privately-owned common spaces are not protected by the first amendment against regulation by the owner of the space [0], though the first amendment rights of the owner also do not prevent state constitutions (California's in particular) from creating free speech obligations which do bind certain private owners of an extremely narrow class of public spaces, I think it is impossible to argue that virtual spaces are somehow protected under the first amendment by analogy to private common spaces, since the latter aren't actually protected.

[0] there is, IIRC, a different line of cases applying narrowly to government's or individual government official's use of privately owned physical spaces as a quasi-official two-way channel which does create some first amendment protection in that narrow context, and these principles have been extended to online fora, but that's not germane here.