[Spooky23]

It’s private property. As is AWS. Granted a private home has some additional legal attributes, the point remains the same.

Are you allowed to screech racist diatribes to call for a riot at my bar’s open mic night?

Are you allowed to scream political speech in a shopping mall?

Are you allowed to use the PSTN to organize your criminal enterprise?

[agiroth]

You missed the point. Scale is what matters, not privacy.

The Supreme Court has ruled that free speech on private property is still protected when questions of scale are introduced. There are circumscriptions on that, but it is still protected.

[ashtonkem]

You are either wildly misrepresenting what the courts have said, or repeating a lie that someone else has told you. In either case, please stop doing that.

Yes, there are circumstances where the courts have found that private actors have crossed the line into acting like the government (“state action”) and therefore have to follow rules set for the government. But they’ve only done this for private actors that have literally built an entire town and run it like the government. The seminal case in this area was about whether or not the first amendment applied in a company town (Marsh vs. Alabama).

The courts have never found that anything anywhere close to AWS falls under state action. Not only have they not did that, but they’ve said that state action only applies in cases where companies perform functions that are “historically the exclusive domain of governments”, such as running towns. Given that providing web hosting has neither been a government responsibility, nor has it been exclusively a government responsibility, there is a 0% chance that the courts would apply state action to a company like AWS.

There is also no interest by any member of the court to expand state action, liberal or conservative. The last case on the issue saw dissent based not around state action, but whether or not the private actor in question had taken over a contract that constrained them (a private actor bought a former public tv channel). The dissent wouldn’t even cover a case covering AWS.

[Spooky23]

Where does scale apply? I don’t recall some carve out in the constitution or in contract law. “Your home is your castle, unless a lot of Vikings show up”

If I buy every ticket in Yankee stadium and turn it into a rally for Some political issue, is the management required to just deal with it? What law requires that AWS host people who want to overthrow the government?

[agiroth]

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/326/501/

The more people are involved, the more interest the state has in private property.

This is why for example we have employment and health laws.

[ashtonkem]

Again, you are absolutely wrong about that case and the doctrine (state action) it covers. I really wish people would stop repeating this nonsense.

Marsh vs. Alabama wasn’t decided because it affected a lot of people. It was decided that way because it was about a private company who literally ran an entire town. It was decided that because they were performing the functions of the government, the rules applied to the government should apply to them.

Since then, Marsh v. Alabama has been “limited to the facts.” Later precedent has clarified that state action only applies in cases where private actors take up duties that are “traditionally exclusive to the state” (Manhattan Community Access v. Halleck). No matter which way you slice it, AWS does not fall under this precedent.