First amendment freedom of press7/29/2023 The court explained that “the First Amendment governs only governmental limitations on speech.” ( Nyabwa v. Earlier this year, a federal district court in Texas applied the traditional state action doctrine to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a private individual against Facebook. It is true that state action doctrine traditionally limits the application of the First Amendment to private actors. The point here is that when an entity like Facebook engages in censorship, individuals don’t get to participate in the marketplace of ideas and are not allowed the liberty to engage in individual selffulfillment- just like when a governmental entity engages in censorship. Censorship stunts personal growth and individual expansion. Individual self-fulfillment, often associated with the liberty theory, posits that people need and crave the ability to express themselves to become fully functioning individuals. It is traced back to John Milton’s free speech tract Areopagitica (1644): “Let Truth and Falsehood grapple whoever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” It is better for people to appreciate for themselves different ideas and concepts. The first justification, the marketplace of ideas, is a pervasive metaphor in First Amendment law that posits the government should not distort the market and engage in content control. Powerful private actors can infringe on free expression rights just as much as public actors. These justifications don’t require governmental presence. ![]() Speaking of speech, two key justifications for robust protection of the First Amendment right to freedom of expression are the marketplace of ideas and individual self-fulfillment. But the nature of those protests couldn’t seem more public and cries out for a re-evaluation of the state action doctrine and the importance of protecting speech. The National Football League’s reaction to Colin Kaepernick and other players “taking a knee” during the playing of the National Anthem is a pristine example of private conduct outside the reach of the First Amendment under current doctrine. While this article focuses on social media entities, the public/private distinction and the state action doctrine are important beyond cyberspace. A society that cares for the protection of free expression needs to recognize that the time has come to extend the reach of the First Amendment to cover these powerful, private entities that have ushered in a revolution in terms of communication capabilities. Certain powerful private entities-particularly social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others-can limit, control, and censor speech as much or more than governmental entities. The case was dropped in May 2020.The First Amendment only limits governmental actors-federal, state, and local-but there are good reasons why this should be changed. The employee and several other employees with similar issues sued Google in January 2018. What many people don’t understand is that, as the Washington Post put it at the time of the firing, “ the First Amendment protects people from adverse actions by the government, but it does not generally apply to actions by private employers.” There is, after all, no guarantee of employment in the U.S. Damore was fired shortly thereafter because the memo violated Google’s code of conduct and crossed the line “by advancing harmful gender stereotypes,” according to Google’s CEO. The memo was subsequently leaked to the media, setting off a firestorm of outrage and a heated debate about the limits of free speech in the workplace. A Google employee, James Damore, posted a 10-page memo to an internal company forum arguing that women were underrepresented in the tech industry because of “biological causes” of differences between men and women, and it criticized the company for its diversity and inclusion initiatives.
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