No, it isn't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market square, but is still private property.
1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do
The 1st amendment gives you the right of free speech, but it does not give you the right to commandeer someone else's resources for that purpose. FB does not belong to you, or to the public. If FB decides to block you from using their site, for whatever reason, then you just have to go exercise your right of free speech somewhere else.
If tax money pays for 2 minutes worth of labor by a police officer to log into watever tool and click a button to ban an account, then it's no longer a generic case of FB deciding to block an account "for watever reason".
I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm saying it should be subject to due process.
Disclosure: non-American with cursory knowledge of American law.
True; but it's still not a case of the account holder's free speech rights being infringed, because the account holder doesn't have a free speech right to use FB's resources in the first place. If the police were trying to keep him from posting to his own blog on a domain that he owned himself, that would be different.
This kind of thing might be an instance of infringing Facebook's rights to manage their property how they want, if FB was being forced to give the police officer access; but that doesn't appear to be the case: FB appears to be cooperating voluntarily with law enforcement to provide this tool.
I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm saying it should be subject to due process.
I don't disagree, but the reason for requiring due process would not be to protect free speech rights for FB's users; it would be because US citizens decide, collectively, that we don't want to allow the police to have this kind of power without more oversight, even if a private company like Facebook provides the access voluntarily. I'm not sure what, if any, Constitutional provision that invokes, but I don't think it's the 1st Amendment.
I took the liberty of rephrasing the parent comment to target dead tree media. The First Amendment problems with such an order to a third-party printer are left as an exercise for the first year law student. That is not to say it's always a slam dunk case; there's a continuum between "FYI Facebook," "Please ban," and "Here's a formal order to ban."
Isn't this correct? Can't a third party refuse to let the NYT use its printers?
The First Amendment problems with such an order to a third-party printer
As I said in the post you responded to, AFAIK the government is not issuing an "order" to Facebook; Facebook is voluntarily allowing the police to do this.
If FB was being "ordered" to do this, that would be different. But as I said in the post you responded to, I still don't think it would be a First Amendment issue; it would be a private property issue (the government trying to restrict how Facebook can make decisions about its property, namely who can use its services).
It's clear that some degree of state action pressure on intermediaries (publishers, FB, web sites) is illegal and unconstitutional; I was responding to your point that I read as arguing the contrary in all cases. Whether a particular state action crosses the 1A line is a fact-dependent analysis -- some of the examples in this rather vague article strike me as falling on the wrong side of that line. Also note that some state constitutions, including California's, have free speech protections that go beyond the federal 1A.
This would come as no surprise :-), but can you give some references to case law?
I was responding to your point that I read as arguing the contrary in all cases.
I was arguing that there is no "pressure" on FB since they are voluntarily providing this access to the police. (Of course, I can only base that on the information that's been available to the public; it's entirely possible that what's gone on in private between FB and the government is more coercive in nature.)
Also note that some state constitutions, including California's, have free speech protections that go beyond the federal 1A.
Hm, good point.
The same argument could be made that a telephone customer should have to build their own network and assemble their own telephone receivers if they want to communicate with someone or say something that the phone company doesn't like.
Because there is such a high barrier to entry for basic telecoms infrastructure, this would be extremely problematic for society, and the infrastructure is regulated to prevent the companies from interfering with speech just because they don't like its content.
Facebook is not infrastructure. The infrastructure used to communicate with it can also be used to freely communicate with any other person or service, with a very low barrier to entry. Witness now, you and I and many others are communicating on this very site without any involvement of Facebook whatsoever. Many people use Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, good ol' email, SMS, and various IM services to communicate entirely separate from Facebook. I don't even have a Facebook account, nor do most of the people I have regular in-person contact with -- it holds no appeal to us.
I can setup any number of services and applications in minutes at minimal cost on servers likewise entirely distinct from Facebook that would facilitate a wide variety of communications.
Facebook could shut down tomorrow and the societal disruption would be fleeting and mostly non-fiscal. The hive mind would quickly anoint a successor or two, and life would go on.
If, somehow, all the major telecom companies and their infrastructure disappeared tomorrow, severe economic disruption would occur, and it would take years, probably decades, to restore full service, much less recover from the economic collapse.
Thus is the distinction between a popular social networking service run on top of a telecommunications network, and the telecommunications network itself, and thus the disparity in law and rights.
The telephone network was also largely private property, but its use was deemed important and ubiquitous enough that telephone companies were required to act as common carriers.
The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can reliably communicate with all of their friends and family, and thus the only opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights. Facebook, essentially, should belong to the public inasmuch as Facebook strives to become indispensable to the public.
But even if FB didn't do that, the argument about them being a utility doesn't hold water, because, as nknighthb pointed out upthread, FB could shut down tomorrow and people would simply find other means of social networking. The public utility is the Internet infrastructure itself; that is what would cause huge disruption if it were suddenly shut down or restricted.
See nknighthb's comment on this upthread.
The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can reliably communicate with all of their friends and family
You're kidding, right? Haven't you heard of email?
What you mean is, the "walled garden" web sites are more convenient ways for lots of people to communicate with friends and family. Convenience is not enough to invoke free speech rights.
and thus the only opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights
Huh? There are plenty of sites where you can start a blog for free. Web hosting is cheap. And even if you leave all that out, what do you think you're doing by commenting here?
Legally, no.
In spirit? I agree with you. Anywhere that users interact, make friends, and exercise creativity should be defended as something more than physical property. It's a community.
How to write that into law, I don't know. :)