ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS

Suppose the President of the United States voices concern over media concentration. The president promises to consider antitrust suits to break up newspaper monopolies and retroactive legislation prohibiting newspapers from owning radio or television stations, including the remedy of divestment.

Suppose the Washington Post or New York Times, intimidated by the president’s Sword of Damocles, and to appease the United States government, daily shared their contemplated published letters to the editor, op-eds, and indeed, their entire newspapers for vetting by the White House or executive departments or agencies to delete viewpoints or assertions that the government decreed adulterated the cognitive infrastructure of the American people with bad ideas.

Is there any doubt that the described, informal, viewpoint censorship would violate the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and of a free press? The United States Supreme Court condemned a comparable scheme of informal government censorship in Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963). There, a Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth provided booksellers with a list of prohibited books that should be withdrawn from circulation with an implied threat of prosecution if they were not. The Court held the Commission’s de facto censorship of books with no trial to adjudicate whether they were protected by the First Amendment was unconstitutional.

Now fast forward to the digital age and the rise of social media behemoths. President Joe Biden openly flirts with anti-monopoly suits against Facebook, Google, and the usual suspects. The president also voices support for amending section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to dimmish the legal safe harbor social media companies enjoy from publishing the postings of third par-