What They Like

Nov 30, 2021

It's almost as if they're trying to use the media to push their agenda or something. Shares0 A weird thing about rights is you can’t restrict them because the other guy hurt your feelings. The right usually offers some variant of this when someone tries to prevent the circulation of hate speech or when they’re not too busy yelling “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” as they enter Walmart with a rifle or a portable bazooka to own the libs. Unfortunately, not everybody got that memo. Right-leaning folks are angry that social media platforms won’t let them broadcast their opinions. Social media companies and other corporations are hastening moral decay and decadence with their, uhh… razor commercials ! And their Gay Santas ! And these things need to be stopped because the people on the Reich have a constitutional right to free speech, protected by the 1st Amendment! Even though the 1st Amendment only applies to the government. And corporations aren’t the government. Corporations are people, actually. And as such, they themselves have 1st Amendment protections. So the laws the Republicans are trying to pass that would force platforms to share said opinions are probably — and here’s the kicker — unconstitutional. Laws that regulate the content of speech are suspect under the First Amendment. In a June order blocking enforcement of SB 7072, a federal trial judge  noted  that Florida’s law is “about as content-based as it gets.” To have even a chance of standing, a law that favors some speakers or messages over others must further a compelling government interest. Florida’s desire to prop up conservative speech is not the ticket. As the judge who blocked SB 7072 put it: “Leveling the playing field—promoting speech on one side of an issue or restricting speech on the other—is not a legitimate state interest.”