HAAAAAAA. Good Fucking Luck With That One Chief.

Twitter, Facebook, etc. are not obligated to give anyone a platform and can do what they damn well please when it comes to regulating content posted. (See: Tumblr‘s porn apocalypse)

1A *ONLY* says the *GOV’T* can’t limit speech. https://twitter.com/saraecook/status/1265773164556161027

Yeah, SCOTUS is largely in the GOP pocket, but this is one of those Really Fucking Fundamental things that’ll rustle Libertarian Jimmies in a bad way.

Even in cases where classified documents are published, the PUBLISHER isn’t published. The reporter and their sources? Yeah, they’re likely to get some charges brought against them, but the newspaper or website? Not really.

Pentagon papers are a lazy example, so let’s do something a bit more 21st century:

DIY Explosives. Now, because 1A is Pretty Fucking Clear, laws prohibiting an individual from posting “how to make fertilizer go boom 101” are part of the regulation and distribution of weapons.

(Related, there’s some interesting legal shit happening right now with people posting schematics for 3D printed guns.)

Generally speaking, it’s not illegal for the How To to exist on the internet. It’s the active clicking of post/upload that’s the sticky wicket.

Web hosts have stuff in their TOS against using their services for this sort of thing on them largely because when the full force of the US gov’t’s regulatory apparatus across multiple departments decides to Fuck With Your Shit, lawyers get expensive and it’s bad for business.

Go ahead and google GoDaddy’s Nazi problem.

Circling back to the Clown in Chief, him cdictating what Twitter‘s posting policy runs directly against the Compelled Speech doctrine. The US gov’t can’t for an individual or company to say shit.

A lot of cases about compelled speech involve the pledge of allegiance, but Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights is a much more recent case.

People are protected against compelled speech primarily by 1A and, depending on context, 5A (hence plead the 5th).

Tbh, the Primary Reason even the most bootlicking iteration of SCOTUS would be hesitant to support Clown 45 is because it would open a black door to repealing Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31.

But what about regulations requiring warnings like cigarettes, booze, etc? Isn’t that compelled speech?

Well, that falls under commercial speech. It’s not as protected as my ability to walk up to any public official and tell them to go fuck themselves.

The DOJ *could* try to argue the commercial speech aspect, but (while this is a hellsite & social media has led to radicalization & some instances of violence) Twitter isn’t trying to sell anything. It’s a free platform for its user base that gets money from ads and data mining.

FIN for now.

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer, but a part of my master’s curriculum involved learning media law so that we 1) knew our rights and 2) knew how to not get our asses sued.