Media Law for the Real World: Social Media, the Government & The First Amendment
Social Media & the Government
Social media platforms are privately owned companies that are not held to the First Amendment.
Simple enough … except it isn’t.
At Donald Trump’s second inauguration, four of the most powerful tech executives in the world sat just feet from the president. These are the people who control the platforms where political discourse now lives.
So are we really supposed to believe that government and social media exist in completely separate spheres?
The idea that these platforms operate in a vacuum that is untouched by political pressure, regulation, or influence is becoming harder to believe. Even if the First Amendment doesn’t legally apply to them, the relationship between government power and digital speech is anything but clean.
Public Forum and Blocking
So … Is social media considered a traditional public forum?
Technically: no.
Practically: it’s complicated.
Private citizens and private companies can block you without raising a First Amendment issue. That’s not censorship — it’s private moderation.
But when the government is the one doing the blocking, the analysis looks different.
A government-run Facebook page or official account can’t selectively silence criticism. When the state controls the space, constitutional limits re-enter the picture.
This is a line people often miss:
Being blocked online isn’t automatically a First Amendment violation unless the government is the one doing the blocking.
The Campaign Problem
While reading “The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America” by Ellis Cose, I kept circling one uncomfortable question:
Should candidates for public office be held to a higher standard when it comes to misinformation?
Misinformation is generally protected by the First Amendment (unless it crosses into defamation, fraud, or perjury). And that protection doesn’t disappear just because the speaker is running for president.
But …
When you’re campaigning for the most powerful office in the country — when millions of lives, democratic legitimacy, and public trust are on the line — should anything really be fair game?
I think that we can all agree that campaigns built on lies are unethical … but they are legal.
The First Amendment doesn’t promise truth — it promises that the government won’t decide what the truth is. And that’s where this becomes dangerous.
Political speech receives the highest level of First Amendment protection. That same protection, however, means political misinformation can be uniquely powerful. Elections don’t just choose winners, they shape public trust and democratic legitimacy in ways that last long after ballots are counted.
We’re living with the consequences of elections influenced by misinformation, especially in how deeply they’ve fractured trust in democratic institutions.
The Danger of Regulation
Here’s a question that is becoming increasingly more difficult to answer:
Can the government regulate harm without being an arbiter of the truth?
Who decides what counts as misinformation?
What happens when political power shifts hands?
What speech gets labeled “dangerous”?
Whose voices get silenced?
Once the door is cracked open for the government to punish “bad” political speech, it can be kicked wide open. Regulation meant to protect democracy can just as easily be used to suppress dissent.
History tells us this risk isn’t hypothetical.
Watchdogs & Accountability
If the government can’t be trusted to regulate political speech without overreach, accountability has to come from elsewhere. That responsibility falls to institutions outside state power.
We have to rely on journalists, independent media, fact-checking, and persistent questioning.
The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee truth, but it protects the conditions that allow truth to be challenged, tested, and exposed.
That tension isn’t a flaw in the Constitution. It’s the cost of freedom.
