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by friendlydude12 2990 days ago
Being able to physically run your mouth in public has little to do with free speech, including shouting fire in a movie theatre.

Free speech is the ability to express any opinion or idea, anti-government opinions included. This is why online posts and various non-verbal actions (like burning a flag) are protected under The First Amendment, even though nothing is being physically said. Additionally this is why threatening violence towards somebody isn’t protected: a threat of violence isn’t an opinion or an idea.

1 comments

The first amendment protects you from the American government. Private entities can block what they want.

Your first amendment rights were not violated if Facebook censors you.

There are cases where the First Amendment can apply to "private-owned public spaces", such as company towns [0] or shopping malls [1]. While such a designation has not yet been applied to Facebook, some are exploring the possibility of doing so [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

[1] https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2010/08/free-speech-cali...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-11-29/how-to-ta...

Never made that claim but thanks for the info.