WASHINGTON — Whatever else might be said about the curious lawsuits filed last week by former President Donald J. Trump, in which he accused three big tech companies of violating his First Amendment rights by denying him access to their platforms, it is fitting that he sued in Florida. The state has long been on the cutting edge, and on the losing end, of efforts to force private companies to publish political messages to which they object. Almost 50 years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a Florida law that would have allowed politicians a “right to reply” to newspaper articles critical of them. And late last month, a federal judge in Florida blocked a new state law that would have imposed large fines on some tech companies (but not those that own theme parks in the state, like Disney) that “willfully deplatform a candidate for office.”Together, the two decisions, one from the Nixon era and the other issued on June 30, demonstrate that the lawsuits Mr. Trump filed in Miami on Wednesday against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube face steep odds. The First Amendment applies to government censorship and not private activities, courts have said, and it protects publishers’ editorial judgments, including ones that decline to give politicians a forum.

Source: New York Times July 12, 2021 09:00 UTC