[thayne]

It can be both.

The intent of 1A is to protect the freedom of speech from those in power. The fact that non-government entities now wield the power to suppress speech doesn't change the fact that this is an infringement of free speech.

[lxgr]

That’s not the interpretation of pretty much any court in the history of the United States.

In fact, the opposite is true: The government forcing private individuals or companies to tolerate speech on their premises or carry it in their media is considered compelled speech and as such a First Amendment violation itself.

Whether that’s still the best way of doing things is a different question, but that’s what the First Amendment is/does.

[somenameforme]

This is incorrect. An important case is Marsh vs Alabama. [1]

A person was distributing fliers in a 'company town.' Company towns were essentially privately owned 'towns' on privately owned property. They were told to stop and leave, they refused, and were arrested for trespass. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court where it was thrown out. Wiki has a pretty nice synopsis of the critical point:

---

The state had attempted to analogize the town's rights to the rights of homeowners to regulate the conduct of guests in their home. The Court rejected that contention by noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion". The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.

---

That's unlikely to matter here but it's an important nuance to the 1st Amendment. It's also important for the future because it will, sooner or later, likely end up applying to social media companies who are doing everything they can frame themselves as a digital 'public square' for speech.

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

[lxgr]

This interpretation seems like the exception proving the rule. If it were consistently applied, as you say, social media companies should logically also be required to carry all speech.

The reasonable democratic thing to do here would be to propose new legislation explicitly covering the protection of speech "on private property", pass it if deemed desirable, and just be done with it.

Of course, the problem with that is that such a law might be seen to actually contradict the First Amendment (compelled speech and all), so it would possibly have to be a constitutional amendment, and that's obviously not happening. I really have no idea on how to get out of this mess, yet doing so seems extremely important.

[somenameforme]

The point of the ruling is that 'private property' is not, in all cases, strictly defined by private vs public ownership. The more a property is treated in a fashion akin to a public property, the more the rights of the owners become constrained in a fashion similar to the 'normal' owners of public properties - the government. So for instance a similar case was Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck [1] in which somebody was trying to argue that public access TV should be considered a public space, which would lead to some rather interesting TV segments! It made its way the Supreme Court and he was ruled against, but only by a 5-4 split!

That's why I said that such protections will likely end up applying, sooner or later. The precedent for moving stuff from the private to public domain (in terms of protections of users) is quite clear and there's a willingness among the court to act on such, so this applying to things that provide free open access to far more people than any government can reach, and then try to act as their untouchable and unconstrained overlord by appealing to 'private property', is probably inevitable. Of course "inevitable" has no meaning. It could be 5 years from now, or 50.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_Cor...

[rdtsc]

In case of a mall however it didn’t hold up:

> In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the Supreme Court distinguished a private shopping mall from the company town in Marsh and held that the mall had not been sufficiently dedicated to public use for First Amendment free speech rights to apply within it.

A company towns per-se don’t exist anymore in US? There are developer owned neighborhoods though. Mixed zoned areas with everything owned by a corporate entity, so could apply there perhaps?

[rdtsc]

> It can be both

It can and perhaps should, I agree. But whether it actually does, I am not sure.

[brookst]

Wait so the 5th amendment protects diaries from snooping siblings?

[sejje]

4th you meant?

[brookst]

Yeah, 4th would have been better.

[mulmen]

> The intent of 1A is to protect the freedom of speech from those in power.

The entire First Amendment is one sentence:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nowhere in there does it say anything about "those in power" in a way that it could possibly apply to a private party.