Case: 21-51178
Document: 00516474571
Page: 2
Date Filed: 09/16/2022
No. 21-51178
In urging such sweeping relief, the platforms offer a rather odd
inversion of the First Amendment. That Amendment, of course, protects
every person’s right to “the freedom of speech.” But the platforms argue
that buried somewhere in the person’s enumerated right to free speech lies a
corporation’s unenumerated right to muzzle speech.
The implications of the platforms’ argument are staggering. On the
platforms’ view, email providers, mobile phone companies, and banks could
cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or
spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate, or
business. What’s worse, the platforms argue that a business can acquire a
dominant market position by holding itself out as open to everyone—as
Twitter did in championing itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech
party.” Blue Br. at 6 & n.4. Then, having cemented itself as the monopolist
of “the modern public square,” Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct.
1730, 1737 (2017), Twitter unapologetically argues that it could turn around
and ban all pro-LGBT speech for no other reason than its employees want to
pick on members of that community, Oral Arg. at 22:39–22:52.
Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First
Amendment right to censor what people say. Because the district court held
otherwise, we reverse its injunction and remand for further proceedings.
2