My limited understanding is that the 1st amendment only applies to the GOVERNMENT not being able to control what you say, and since these are private companies it doesn’t apply to them etc.
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.
How about if the Government is giving special favors to those companies that do its dirty work of censorship for it?
I don't know if you are right or wrong. What I do know is Alan Dershowitz is the smartest 1st amendment scholar and he is not afraid to go against political thought. I'l go with whatever he says.
Try this:
You are running against me for public office. Two weeks before the election, I make up a scandal about you, phone it in to the newspaper, they print it, you lose. A week later my lie is exposed. You can sue me for slander, you can sue the newspaper for libel, but you can't sue the phone company for anything.
Facebook and company were kind of new thing in the world, and for a while, the government let them dance on the top of the fence. At the beginning they only censored things that pretty clearly did not belong, but over time they began to abuse that trust.
Which brings us to where we are today. They are just going to have to come down as either a common carrier, with all the pluses and minuses that go with it, or be a content provider, with all the pluses and minuses that go with that.
As far as all the nuanced 'legal logic' (ha ha), that's just the mechanics of getting done whatever they decide they want to get done.
We'll see.