An older article from MSNBC explains why Elon Musk’s basic misunderstandings of free speech are a problem for all of us. Of course he’s not the only one who suffers from such delusions. And the dynamics of why this matters specifically in the Elon case have changed a whole lot since the era of the Twitter files in 2022 of course.
But as a refresher, the US First Amendment, like most parts of the Constitution, applies primarily to state action:
A private business no more violates the First Amendment by banning particular types of speech in its operations than I violate the First Amendment by not allowing particular types of speech in my home.
Privatised social networks aren’t able to violate it even if they wanted to.
And secondly, even if the First Amendment was relevant, then not everything that one could possibly imagine being posted online is covered by it. Some of the stuff that Musk was arguing at the time was being hidden in constitution-breaking ways included photos of Hunter Biden’s genitalia uploaded without his consent. It’s rather ludicrous to imagine that anyone has a protected right to see that. Personally, I’m very glad I do not.
That would be like arguing that someone who posts revenge porn to the internet has a First Amendment right to have it preserved for all to see.
In fact, in California where Twitter is headquartered, sharing photos of someone’s intimate body parts without their consent is explicitly illegal, covered under the revenge porn law, as well as it being against Twitter’s own policy. Of course Musk is free to rewrite Twitter’s policy as and when he wants to, so I’ve no idea if the latter is still true.