[klyrs]

The first amendment is a limitation on Congress, not YouTube. The first amendment also confirms the freedom of association. On the balance, your radically expansive view of "free speech" trods deeply on the freedom of association and is unlikely to find any satisfaction in court.

[bhupy]

GP is not making a legal argument. Nobody is arguing that the First Amendment applies to users of products provided by Facebook. GP is talking about the principle of free speech, which is why we have the First Amendment to begin with.

[dragonwriter]

> GP is talking about the principle of free speech, which is why we have the First Amendment to begin with.

The principle of free speech behind the first amendment is that active choice in what message to spread by private parties produces a desirable marketplace of ideas analogous to a marketplace of goods, where ideas compete on their merits to convince people to devote resources to spreading them, and that this—which not only involves but relies centrally on editorial decisions by the people owning the tools of communications as to which ideas they want to spread—is critical to the progress of good and failure of bad ideas, and is inhibited when the state has their hand on the scales which is why the state must remain neutral so that private actors can act in this area.

The idea of free speech that motivates the first amendment supports free, active, and vigorous decisions as to what content to relay and not by private platform owners. That's the whole point.

There are other competing, incompatible.concepts of free speech besides the one motivating the first amendment, and some of them do have different things to say about private action, but if you want to appeal to the idea of free speech behind the first amendment, it is of no use to your argument here.

[klyrs]

No, application of that principle is literally law. If you want that principle to be enforced in these situations, that's a violation of other rights. If you want them to act differently according to your principles, that's just a damn shame isn't it?