Limiting the Right to Moderate: Political Equality, Social Media, and Viewpoint-Based Moderation

I argue that because many forms of viewpoint-based moderation by major social media companies (SMCs) undermine subjects’ equal opportunity for political influence (EOPI), such moderation violates users’ right to free expression and ought to be prohibited. I then refute three common defenses of SMCs’ freedom to moderate as they please, each of which seeks to establish relevant disanalogies between state- and SMC-imposed speech regulations: the substitution argument, argument from government abuse, and argument from corporate rights. I argue that the presence of substitutes does not excuse viewpoint-based regulation, that the risk of abuse does not meaningfully distinguish state from social media moderation, and that corporate rights are limited by users’ right to EOPI.