It absolutely is. Freedom of speech means free speakers. If you're going to face petty punishments for the rest of your days because your criticized the "wrong" people then you are not a free speaker.
If you're serious about a free society that means you have to cop criticism, disrespect, and even mockery, most especially and particularly if you're in a position of power.
Government does, but other entities don’t.
I am not saying I agree or like it, just that 1st amendment doesn’t specifically apply here.
The general idea of freedom of speech applies and there may be state, local laws or other federal laws in play. But that’s more “in spirit” and wouldn’t hold up in court.
It’s like people being censored on Facebook or YouTube - “Don’t like it? Build your own Facebook or YouTube, pal”. Here it’s “build your own MSG, pal” I guess.
Democracy doesn't just mean you get to vote on some things.
Madison Square Garden and its investors have the freedom to bar anyone they see fit on their own property. Their portfolios are only getting larger.
That’s late stage capitalism.
The intent of 1A is to protect the freedom of speech from those in power. The fact that non-government entities now wield the power to suppress speech doesn't change the fact that this is an infringement of free speech.
The entire First Amendment is one sentence:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Nowhere in there does it say anything about "those in power" in a way that it could possibly apply to a private party.
In fact, the opposite is true: The government forcing private individuals or companies to tolerate speech on their premises or carry it in their media is considered compelled speech and as such a First Amendment violation itself.
Whether that’s still the best way of doing things is a different question, but that’s what the First Amendment is/does.
A person was distributing fliers in a 'company town.' Company towns were essentially privately owned 'towns' on privately owned property. They were told to stop and leave, they refused, and were arrested for trespass. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court where it was thrown out. Wiki has a pretty nice synopsis of the critical point:
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The state had attempted to analogize the town's rights to the rights of homeowners to regulate the conduct of guests in their home. The Court rejected that contention by noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion". The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
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That's unlikely to matter here but it's an important nuance to the 1st Amendment. It's also important for the future because it will, sooner or later, likely end up applying to social media companies who are doing everything they can frame themselves as a digital 'public square' for speech.
> In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the Supreme Court distinguished a private shopping mall from the company town in Marsh and held that the mall had not been sufficiently dedicated to public use for First Amendment free speech rights to apply within it.
A company towns per-se don’t exist anymore in US? There are developer owned neighborhoods though. Mixed zoned areas with everything owned by a corporate entity, so could apply there perhaps?
The reasonable democratic thing to do here would be to propose new legislation explicitly covering the protection of speech "on private property", pass it if deemed desirable, and just be done with it.
Of course, the problem with that is that such a law might be seen to actually contradict the First Amendment (compelled speech and all), so it would possibly have to be a constitutional amendment, and that's obviously not happening. I really have no idea on how to get out of this mess, yet doing so seems extremely important.
That's why I said that such protections will likely end up applying, sooner or later. The precedent for moving stuff from the private to public domain (in terms of protections of users) is quite clear and there's a willingness among the court to act on such, so this applying to things that provide free open access to far more people than any government can reach, and then try to act as their untouchable and unconstrained overlord by appealing to 'private property', is probably inevitable. Of course "inevitable" has no meaning. It could be 5 years from now, or 50.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_Cor...
It can and perhaps should, I agree. But whether it actually does, I am not sure.
But it's also a free speech issue. You're conflating free speech and the First Amendment, but they are not the same thing, and matters of free speech do not begin and end with the First Amendment.