Charlie Buttrey

May 31, 2020

Regular readers of this blog are aware that I am as close to a First Amendment absolutist as they come. Which means that I tend to cast a very jaundiced eye at any effort on the part of the government to restrict speech.

Private entities are, of course, another matter.  If, say, Twitter wants to fact-check my posts or, for that matter, preclude me from posting on that platform entirely, it does not affect my First Amendment right to free speech one bit.  Twitter is a private entity; it is not governed by the First Amendment. As the columnist A.J Neibling wrote (a quote that a loyal reader of this blog has shared on more than one occasion): “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

There are people who, by virtue of the public office they hold, should know this. Apparently, they don’t.

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