Jed Rubenfeld’s “The Censorship Machine Is Running in 2024” (op-ed, June 6), advocating legislation barring social-media platforms from determining not to carry certain speech during a political campaign, runs directly into a First Amendment barrier. That is the consequence of having the government decide what views social media must carry.
Racist political advocacy, which is protected under the First Amendment but hardly speech that must be carried by social media today, would have to be carried under such legislation. Potentially false statements about candidates couldn’t be “censored” by being rejected by social media, even though any newspaper would be protected by the First Amendment in doing so.
