Paul NehlenVerified account

There's a liberty flag behind you.. what about the liberty of these private companies to operate their businesses anyway that they see fit?

The "muh private business" ship sailed long ago with the Civil Rights Act (and more recently, "bake the cake"). The left cannot have it both ways.

Well, that needs to change. Private companies do have the right to discriminate and so do individuals. You may not agree with their decisions, but it's a decision they have the right to make.

Well, the reality is that the Civil Rights Act isn't going anywhere, and so we're going to use legislation to protect our speech from viewpoint discrimination by major social platforms, which are the primary channels of public communication nowadays.

I'm not in favor of these decisions by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to censor viewpoints they disagree with, but I also respect their right to do so. Just because I don't agree with it doesn't mean I think we need a law to protect against it.

They don't have a right to do so if Congress says they don't. They have abused the public trust with their oppressive and politically-motivated censorship. It is extremely damaging to American free speech values, and cannot be allowed to continue.

If Congress makes that decision, then I will say that Congress is wrong for doing so. Despite my personal preference, I respect the right of those companies, and any others, to run their businesses however they want. If you don't want to be censored by them go somewhere else.

That's not how things work when these companies are functional monopolies that benefit from powerful network effects (an anticompetitive force). In exchange for those benefits, they must remain speech-neutral, or they would have to be trustbusted.

None of that is particularly necessary or helpful, and there are many reasons why. This legislation is the solution you've *really* been looking for. #ShallNotCensor

It would spur competition; allowing smaller ISPs to compete; as for censorship issues I concede that should be handled in another bill such as what Nehlen proposes. When Reagan broke Ma Bell, many great companies emerged; Sprint for example had it roots in this.

#ShallNotCensor Great work! Paul Nehlen @pnehlen, this country SO needs this legislation to pass & you in the Senate, as well as Paul Ryan gone.

And just who will determine Lawful Speech Mr. Nehlen? Sounds just a little like Fascism to me.

It's already determined by the Constitution. There are a couple of minor tweaks; the details are in the media release. #ShallNotCensor

Are you arguing what twitter (a private company with a TOS) is doing is unconstitutional? I’d love to see you break it down for me

No, this is a statute that applies the First Amendment's free speech protections to major social media platforms. Private companies are not bound by the Constitution. But they *are* bound by federal statutes.

There is precedent for this. In the early 1800's major corporations owned ENTIRE TOWNS. During that time there were "company town" rulings which restored first amendment rights to protest in those towns despite them being "privately owned"