While the First Amendment does not bind private corporations, there is nothing preventing one — like Twitter — voluntarily assuming such protections for free speech. Even with some adjustments for a private forum, what I call the First Amendment Option would create a default in favor of free speech that doesn’t exist on these platforms.
There’d be narrow exceptions for threatening, unlawful and a few other proscribed categories of speech. Twitter can tap into a long line of First Amendment jurisprudence limiting the scope of such speech regulations. Even with a private company’s greater flexibility, a First Amendment-based policy would establish much better protections for free speech.
In other words, Musk could show up at Twitter with precisely the standard long dismissed by censorship advocates — and then let that sink in.…
One problem with Twitter "independence" is that Elon Musk is a large-scale US government contractor.
JonathanTurley.com
Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University
Business Today (India)
Elon Musk fires entire Twitter board to become the sole director
Scott Ritter Extra
Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss
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Elon Musk fires entire Twitter board to become the sole director
Danny D'Cruze
Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss
Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, serving in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, on General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector
Ritter chomping at the bit to be back on Twitter... may have to lower his expectations.
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