Not along a particular channel, but right to hear is an important principle.
As Frederick Douglass, a former slave and writer, wisely stated, “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the right of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.”
If his permission was revoked due to the government threatening to regulate the printing press to death if they didn't stop printing Frederick Douglas, that is suppression of free speech from the government.
The democratic president incapable of passing non budget related laws due to the senate filibuster rules and has an adversarial Supreme Court controlled by the opposing party reducing his executive authority is threatening to regulate social media to death? That doesn't seem very likely.
All government mandates were implemented using executive agency rules not laws. Thus far we have treated agency rules as acceptable despite being essentially laws that can be created by the executive.
With executive agencies the executive does not need to pass a law or even ask permission to implement any number of rights violating policies.
>At least 11 federal agencies, and around 80 government officials, have been explicitly directing social media companies to take down posts and remove certain accounts that violate the government’s own preferences and guidelines for coverage on topics ranging from COVID restrictions, to the 2020 election, to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
No no no, see that was still action taken by private business. In order for the government to be doing that, you need a government agent to walk into the companies, sign log into the system and delete the posts. And they have to carry a signed order from their supervisor and saying "I'm doing this for the government" while doing so.
Otherwise it might just be a random government employee gone rogue.
As Frederick Douglass, a former slave and writer, wisely stated, “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the right of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.”