Social Media Imposing Modern-Day Hays Code on Political Speech

Nearly a century later, lawmakers are once again awakening to the power of centralized speech controls by turning to social media companies to impose constraints traditionally prohibited under the First Amendment. Twenty state attorneys general demanded this week that Facebook considerably narrow its speech rules to outlaw anything the government sees as “hate speech.” While the government itself cannot ban most speech, this novel approach suggests it may be legal for the government to instead ask private companies to ban speech it dislikes, nominally complying with the First Amendment by outsourcing the banning process.