# OK Let's do this: who thinks social media's recent bannings are first amendment violations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2021, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-lets-do-this-who-thinks-social-medias-recent-bannings-are-first-amendment-violations/930310 "2021-01-12T03:26:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 38
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-lets-do-this-who-thinks-social-medias-recent-bannings-are-first-amendment-violations/930310/38 "2021-01-12T12:48:18Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Here are two people who do: > > [https://www.wsj.com/articles/save-the-constitution-from-big-tech-11610387105](https://www.wsj.com/articles/save-the-constitution-from-big-tech-11610387105) > > I’m in no way a legal expert, but the government threatening big tech to make them carry out censorship that the government is constitutionally prohibited from doing, would violate the spirit of the 1st Amendment. So, the argument is that Congress threatened to rein in these companies if they didn’t do something on their own, so it really is an act of Congress. It then goes on to say our founders couldn’t have possibly foretold the growth of this fourth branch of government… Ignoring that the founders were pretty damn aware of the power of the press, and Twitter, etc., is really just a modern version of the press. It would have been a better argument if they said that our founders were blind to the problems with monopolies. But that wouldn’t fit the style of worshipping our founding fathers. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-lets-do-this-who-thinks-social-medias-recent-bannings-are-first-amendment-violations/930310)._