Banning Conservatives from Twitter Doesn't Violate the First Amendment
You may not like what happened to Robert Stacy McCain, but it isn't illegal.
There's no right to free speech on Twitter.
Given the platform's recent decision to ban Robert Stacy McCain's multiple accounts, it's important for people—conservatives, especially—not to lose sight of this. Twitter is a private company, and private companies can set whatever rules they wish regarding speech on their property and within their domain. These rules might seem unfair—and that's okay, too. The rules don't have to be fair. The government cannot and should not compel Twitter to have fair rules. Doing so would violate the First Amendment. Government-mandated speech is just as bad as censorship.
All that said, conservatives have every right to be upset about Twitter's policies, and to protest them.
As I argue in an op-ed for The New York Post:
What should conservatives do? What they're already doing: speak up, and loudly. Shortly after McCain was shown the door, people who want the platform to be more open to free expression organized a #FreeStacy hashtag.
Twitter, to its shame, soon suppressed the hashtag.
In response, some have vowed to boycott Twitter entirely. Actor Adam Baldwin, a popular conservative voice on social media, said the site is "dead to me," and deleted his entire history save for a single link to an article demanding McCain be returned to good standing.
Twitter's ill treatment of right-leaning figures deserves pushback, and these kinds of stunts are as good a tactic as any.
Read the full thing here.
I hope Twitter treads more lightly in the future—again, not because I have a right to say whatever I want on the platform, but because I'm a customer and would prefer a service that had more respect for free expression.
