The first amendment begins with "Congress shall make no law..". The whitehouse isn't congress, neither are the courts and both can arguably censor free speech within their authority. For example, a judge can punish you for wearing the wrong cloth (purely out of self expression) or for insulting him in court (pulic venue).
Unless there is a different law preventing them, the first amendment cannot be used to conclude the WH can't ask companies to censor things. Unless of course there is some interpretation of the amendment that expands it to mean "congress and executive branch but not courts".
What WH or courts can't do from what I understand is implement or enforce a law or executive order that restricts speech under congressional authority, that is under authority granted to them by federal law not by the constitution because I'd imagine then it could be argued they are exceeding their authority since "Congress shall make no law"
This has to do with trying to shut down the censorship industrial complex. Government officials were caught conspiring with social media companies to censor citizens.
> the judge ordered a slew of federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected free speech” that’s posted on the platforms.
Just going off the article it’s talking about preventing unelected officials from limiting the free speech of citizens via back channel communication with social media companies. Elected officials representing their constituents has nothing to do with this.
The ruling proactively limits elected officials ability to speak --- based on the *presumption* that their speech is somehow "bad" --- apparently because they belong to the wrong political party.
This violates all sorts of legal precedent and will likely be overturned.
Even Republicans would vehemently object to having similar applied to them so why bother promoting this sort of partisan gamesmanship? Is this what they call "leadership"?
Unless there is a different law preventing them, the first amendment cannot be used to conclude the WH can't ask companies to censor things. Unless of course there is some interpretation of the amendment that expands it to mean "congress and executive branch but not courts".
What WH or courts can't do from what I understand is implement or enforce a law or executive order that restricts speech under congressional authority, that is under authority granted to them by federal law not by the constitution because I'd imagine then it could be argued they are exceeding their authority since "Congress shall make no law"