this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Twitter positions itself as the Internet's public square, and free speech certainly does apply in an old-fashioned offline public square, so yeah, Twitter kinda does have something to do with free speech. Don't seek power if you don't want the responsibility it comes with.
There's no such thing as "the internet's public square". It is the "X-owned public square". In an offline public square, the government owns the square, so free speech protections apply. But this "square" is privately owned. There's an incredibly fundamental difference here.
That's not how it works, what you are talking about is often called freeze peach.
Until Twitter can fine you or lock you up for saying the wrong thing or exercise prior restraint over all your expression, it's not a free speech issue.
By positioning itself as the Internet's public square, Twitter seeks a monopoly over public discourse. If it is successful, then yes, it can exercise prior restraint over virtually all of your expression.
It can succeed in that endeavor the moment I become unemployable. I'm not making an account there, never will, and I will die on this hill.
I think you’re mostly right but there’s a host of nuance and legalese that muddies this up. Social media is always in a conflicted relationship with speech, wanting to have no culpability over what’s posted while also making decisions over what to feature/restrict/etc. They’re actually really cautious to not position themselves as the “town square” for that reason since it does channel a sort of legal definition of such.
Since it is Musk that manages the "Internet's public square", it isn't a public square at all.