With rising incidences of hate-motivated crimes in the United States and hateful speech proliferating online, there are increasing calls for the government to tamp down on bigoted expression. In the United States, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic vitriol, among other categories of hateful expression, are protected speech; Germany bans such sentiments. But the Internet age has demonstrated that fighting speech with speech has its own perils. The combination of the First Amendment’s protections for free speech and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under law would seem to ensure that, in the United States, everyone’s speech is equivalently free and safeguarded. ADADBut Twitter, Facebook and other online platforms are private companies, which have their own free speech rights — including the right to elevate or take down content as they see fit.

Source: Washington Post July 02, 2020 15:00 UTC