To wit, it matters not if the Giant makes a polite or directly threatening request of Jack. In either case, Jack is right to assume that he has no choice in the matter. And can not be expected to tell the Giant to "pound sand". Conversely, the Giant should not be able to claim that Jack had a choice.
The government has no business asking any entity, which it does not fund, to remove speech in the United States.
Keep in mind this was in response to a question from a Bloomberg "journalist" which basically laid out the premise that Musk might be a national security threat. Biden has been known to show up to press conferences with a "cheat sheet" listing which journalists to call for questions, and the verbatim text of the question that each will ask. [1]
[0] https://nypost.com/2022/11/09/biden-calls-for-federal-invest...
[1] https://www.allsides.com/news/2023-04-27-0330/politics-biden...
The case law is established.
There isn't a single case of someone's speech being censored, due to government request, for which the person being censored does not have a Constitutionally airtight First Amendment violation complaint.
Whether that suppression was done with threats, requests, subtle hints, or an automated system, if the government's intent was to suppress speech, the means employed make no difference.
Edit: imagine an extreme case in which a social network independently created an automated system for government employees to remove posts. Would it be constitutional for the government to use that system?
Clearly not, despite the lack of any coercion.
The fact is that the means employed make every bit of difference when it comes to whether or not the content based speech restriction is tailored as narrowly as possible to achieve a compelling government interest.
On the other hand, maybe it makes not difference to your feelings, which is fair.
Meanwhile the emergency broadcast rules that were created in early tv and radio era definitely don't apply to social media, given that they are discretionary, asynchronous forms of communication, and there's no lack of bandwidth as there was in the early tv and radio era.
I'm saying that using minimal means does not make an unconstitutional action acceptable; you're pointing out that using excessive means can make a constitutional action unacceptable. That's a different situation and not really a reply to my comment or this case.
To make it more relevant, can you point to a single case where a court has ruled that a constitutionally limited action was permitted simply because the means were unintrusive?
A compelling government interest, as you said, could justify the action, but what is the compelling government interest here?
Giving the government a special, higher priority reviewed support queue isn't illegal, as long as the company is acting with independence.
If there is no coercion then your complain boils down to others not sharing your opinion, both in the way they don't reverberate your personal opinion and in the way they express opinions you don't agree with.
That's kind of the opposite thing you claim you're trying to achieve.
And I don't understand the argument that the social networks' willingness to cooperate makes the government's actions more acceptable.
That's a bit like allowing the government to confiscate property without a trial, if the bank is cooperative.
