First Amendment For Dummies

 There seems to be a lot of discussion around free speech, lately, with Elmo allowing spewers of hatred and disinformation back onto the cesspool that Twitter has become.  Almost every comment on the topic displays a complete lack of understanding of the First Amendment.  Let's begin with the actual text:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It actually seems pretty straightforward to me, but for some reason, many have the completely fucking wrong idea that Twitter must allow free speech.  News flash kids; as a private corporation, it doesn't have to allow jack.  

Let's say I owned a bar; as a business owner, I want a positive experience for my customers, so they'll return and maybe recommend my establishment to others.  What I don't want is to be seen as someone who endorses and gives a platform to that which most reasonable people find objectionable.  Therefore, if someone came in, spouting praise for Hitler, their ass would be tossed with malice.  That person has the freedom to espouse their love for Hitler all they want, but not in my private business.  I have the right to abridge free speech all day in my establishment, because I'm not the government.

It's the same situation for Twitter, in that the (previous) management was focused on providing a safe platform to exchange ideas, and cat pictures.  More users ultimately results in greater advertising revenue.  Right wing hate speech, meant to incite violence, and dangerous medical non-advice degrades that safe environment for users.  It also drives away advertisers who don't wish to be associated with such material.  News flash for the right wing looneys; most people find that shit objectionable.  

Yet, there are those who continue to clamor for all of the banned accounts to be restored, claiming their voices are being suppressed.  To that, I offer a hearty, "who gives a shit?"  Twitter can ban whomever they want, whenever they want, and remove people for saying things they don't like, because again, they aren't the government.  

Since I started writing this one, the whole Twitter file nonsense has broken.  As expected, it was a big fat pile of nothing.  Twitter suppressed some tweets, which were essentially revenge porn of Hunter; something that's quite illegal.  BOTH the Biden and Trump campaign had interactions with Twitter on these types of situations.  

I'll make one comment on the Hunter Biden laptop, which is one more than it deserves.  The data on that hard drive has been spread far and wide and is well known at this point.  If there were damning evidence present, it would have been broken by now, by more than the fringe right wing media.