It's pretty depressing to see so many people - especially lawyers (ie. Ken White) - who think the 1st Amendment is the totality of free speech, and not the minimum standard.
The government should never, ever violate this right, but frankly neither should any other institution in most cases.
The Bill of Rights exists to protect individuals from the state, which is always the worst abuser and biggest risk of violating rights. So the 1st Amendment is a crucial tool for maintaining freedom.
But the Amendment exists because we value free speech.
It's not the source.
Freedom of speech is a moral / ethical concept. It's valuable for several reasons.
- Individuals have agency and own their bodies & minds, so freedom of thought and action should be the default.
- No one is omniscient. Knowledge is limited and localized.
Speech and expression are humans' only means of discovering alternate perspectives and knowledge, thus freedom of speech is indispensable for discovering truth and exploring new ideas.
This, in turn is essential for...
- Creativity & innovation. Without freedom of speech, we are stuck only with the ideas and values of a small group of people in power, as opposed to empowering billions of people to participate in creating art, culture, science, and technology.
All of these values remain true regardless of whether we are talking about a public or private context. Law protects us from government. But only an open, pro-speech, high-tolerance culture protects us from attacks on speech coming from private institutions.
Ignoring the suppression of speech on platforms like Twitter or facebook has always been dangerous, short-sighted, and stupid. The people working for those companies who have focused on such suppression like vijaya have caused harm to society.
But... They're proud of it.
I get that platforms need filtering tools to help people navigate a landscape of often unwanted expression (coarse language, NSFW images, racism), but those tools need to be controlled by the users.
Individuals should choose what speech to interact with, not social networks.
This has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment directly, but everything to do with the principles 1A was founded on.
Few people seem to get that. I hope elonmusk does.