Freedom of speech is more than the right to say things.
It is the right not to be forced to say things you don't want to say.
Freedom of speech is at risk.
Three Supreme Court justices--Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas--voted to uphold a Texas law that would prohibit large social media companies from refusing to publish material they thought dangerous or offensive. Alito's opinion stated that Texas's law "does not require social media platforms to host any particular message but only to refrain from discrimination against a user’s speech on the basis of 'viewpoint.'”
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a720_6536.pdf
Protecting an entity's right to express, or not express, a viewpoint is the whole point of the First Amendment. The rule works in the opposite direction as well. A newspaper or other publisher need not create or distribute words, images, or ideas they consider objectionable. That is telling some private party what they must speak.
The Texas law does not apply to me and this blog. The Texas law applies to social media platforms with 50 million or more customers--way more than this blog. But the principle is the same, so there is risk to everyone's freedom, and to the viability of publishers everywhere.
Let me reveal a sad little secret about the "comment" sections of any social media site. There are weird, crazy, angry people out there. I need to moderate comments to keep the blog from becoming a cesspool and legal liability for me. Moderating comments is a time consuming nuisance, but absolutely necessary. Many political sites have given up and stopped allowing comments. Keeping out the crazies is too much work.
This blog gets malware spam comments. I delete them before they are published. This blog gets plagiarized news articles that would introduce copyright problems for me. I delete those, too. This blog gets obscene, threatening comments generally directed at me personally, sometimes others. I delete those, although I collect them and send them to local law enforcement which has a growing file. More dangerous to the political environment, this blog gets proposed comments purporting to be from well-known local and national political figures. It attributes words and ideas to them, and they have their own reputations to protect. I delete those. Also dangerous are other comments--some obscene, some not--written by a well-known local resident which makes libelous assertions about Medford-area people. That local troll is beyond the reach of public shame, but I am not beyond the reach of a lawsuit for having published his assertions. I delete those, too, and collect them for law enforcement's files.
International social media companies have scale that makes them a potential damage to our democracy. They can spread conspiracies and misinformation that leads to insurrections. Texas law targeted Facebook and Twitter. They have the right to protect themselves from trolls, spammers, and viewpoints they don't like, and they are smart to do so..
Fox News has the same right. If Fox does not want to air commentators critical of Republicans, it is their right to control their message. Shepard Smith, Carl Cameron, and Chris Wallace are off the air. They weren't "on message." They presented news that contradicted the opinions voiced by the more-popular opinion hosts. Fox has a point of view. They have freedom of speech and the press.
Facebook and Twitter should have it, too. Who says? The Bill of Rights.
There's obviously a lot I didn't know about blogs. Peter, I commend your earnest efforts to post every day. No easy task. Always a good read.