Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says that judges will soon have "no choice" but to regulate the tech companies that punished former President Donald Trump for inciting a failed insurrection.
Thomas made the remarks in a Monday Supreme Court opinion that vacated a lower court ruling, which had prevented Trump from blocking certain Twitter followers who he did not want to comment on his tweets.
Thomas, who traditionally sides with corporations, suggested that the high court would allow Congress to erode the First Amendment by arguing that tech companies do not have the free speech rights to control their platforms.
"The petitions highlight two important facts. Today's digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors," Thomas wrote. "Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties."
He added: "We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms."
The Hollywood Reporter's Eriq Gardner concluded that Thomas is "looking to less-than-subtlety reframe the First Amendment into being about power rather than government censorship."
Here's Clarence Thomas looking to less-than-subtlety reframe the First Amendment into being about power rather than government censorship. pic.twitter.com/TMqW6WHGFR
— Eriq Gardner (@eriqgardner) April 5, 2021
🚨Clarence Thomas suggests that social media companies may NOT have a First Amendment right to regulate speech on their platforms, analogizing them to "common carriers" and "places of public accommodation." https://t.co/2zx7nCtIAz pic.twitter.com/ZleTE1aI0S
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 5, 2021
Unsurprisingly, #SCOTUS vacates an appeals court ruling barring Trump from blocking people from his Twitter account. Justice Thomas issues a concurrence musing on possible legal responses to the power of tech companies over speech. pic.twitter.com/2V2GGzXJw7
— Adam Liptak (@adamliptak) April 5, 2021
Legal scholars often talk about how fringe constitutional arguments go from "off the wall" to "on the wall." Clarence Thomas just took a huge step toward moving arguments against social media companies' right to engage in content modification "on the wall"—into the mainstream.
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 5, 2021
