Supreme Court Justice Thomas finds that Social Media Companies do NOT Have 1st Amendment rights to ban protected speech and that Section 230 is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
“As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms,” Justice Thomas wrote in a separate opinion. “The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions.”
“It seems rather odd to say that something is a government forum when a private company has unrestricted authority to do away with it,” Justice Thomas wrote. “The disparity between Twitter’s control and Mr. Trump‘s control is stark, to say the least. Mr. Trump blocked several people from interacting with his messages. Twitter barred Mr. Trump not only from interacting with a few users, but removed him from the entire platform.”
“Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors,” Justice Thomas added.