That ship sailed when a Federal judge determined that President Trump could not block people he disliked from viewing his Tweets or posting replies on his Twitter account. On May 28, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said in her ruling that Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution by preventing certain Americans from viewing his tweets on @realDonaldTrump.
The social media platform, Buchwald said, is a “designated public forum” from which Trump cannot exclude individual plaintiffs. She rejected an argument by the Justice Department that the president had a right to block Twitter followers because of his “associational freedoms.”
That being the case, I don’t see how Twitter can block or ban anyone they disagree with on political grounds. We are in a new era. Companies like Facebook and Twitter are indeed private companies, but so are restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. The issues obviously touch on free speech, but they also touch on the laws governing public accommodations and how businesses treat customers and patrons they disagree with. Leftists can’t have it both ways — although they will certainly keep trying.
It’s going to take a long time to iron out all the questions and ramifications, but one thing that is simply not going to fly in the long term is the idea that Leftist gatekeepers in these businesses will continue to be allowed to delete, shadowban, or otherwise ignore content and opinions that disagree with their political views.
Twitter and Facebook need to wake up and smell the coffee. If they don’t make changes on their own, President might direct the Federal Communications Commission to arbitrarily impose rules that they won’t like. Alternatively, some court will step up and make them. And the Leftists might want to consider that Conservatives can go forum shopping for sympathetic judges just as easily as they can.