The government telling, or implying, backed up with an explicit or implicit threat, an ostensibly private media company who they can and cannot publish or broadcast is as much an abridgment of the First Amendment as a direct government ban. From Glen Greenwald at greenwald.substack.com:
In their zeal for control over online speech, House Democrats are getting closer and closer to the constitutional line, if they have not already crossed it.
sworn in to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in
Washington, DC, on September 5, 2018. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
(Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
For the third time in less than five months, the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms. On March 25, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will interrogate Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebooks’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai at a hearing which the Committee announced will focus “on misinformation and disinformation plaguing online platforms.”
The Committee’s Chair, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of the Subcommittees holding the hearings, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), said in a joint statement that the impetus was “falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine” and “debunked claims of election fraud.” They argued that “these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety,” adding: “This hearing will continue the Committee’s work of holding online platforms accountable for the growing rise of misinformation and disinformation.”
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 