If I owned a message board, and started deleting users post at random, or because of personal taste, would that be a 1A violation? I may or may not be an asshole, but it’s my message board.
There are other parallels I can draw, but these are honest questions.
I know this might sound pretty idealistic but for anyone who thinks otherwise please entertain the possibility that such control could one day turn against you, your political candidate or your personal beliefs and suddenly it will be you who finds themselves in the crosshairs of censorship when there’s a story you believe should be brought up. It’s an ugly timeline that I don’t want to live in.
You could make a similar argument for news, another non-utility. They seem to have a model where outlets have a distinct pov that guides a variety of informal and formal censorship. Right wing doesn’t write stuff that looks bad for them, left wing too, local news follow local interests, etc.
And there's now been this complete role reversal where Democrats (the "great defenders of democracy") are arguing that private media companies can do whatever they like.
And conservatives are arguing that there needs to be a govt intervention with these companies.
So yes. Your example easily doesn't violate the 1A.
What was the role of the people making the requests in state or federal government at the time of the requests (October 2020)?
I will amend this to further ask "are people employed in the public sector prevented from click the 'report' or 'flag' button on social media sites?"