We can say virtually anything we want to say and the Government has no right to limit our expression. THAT’s what the First Amendment and freedom of speech says.

The First Amendment does NOT say that any person or company has to provide the means for our expression to be heard.

Can I stand in the middle of the street and say anything I want to say? Yes. And the Constitution says that the government can’t stop me.

Can I come stand in your backyard, on your personal property, and say anything I want to say? No, because you have the right to kick me out.

Or can I grab your cell phone and start calling people to say things you don’t want me to say? No. Yes, I can say anything I want to say. But neither “free speech” or the First Amendment entitles me to use your property to do it.

You can take your phone back. It’s not mine.

Companies like Twitter, Facebook and the like are basically property owners, just like the neighbor who won’t let you step on their property with a megaphone and give a profanity-laced speech in their front yard in front of their kids.

It’s their property. And they have rules.

Can a restaurant kick us out of we make a scene and break their rules? Absolutely! Can a church expel someone for doing something in violation of their rules? Yes it can.

Our “freedom” doesn’t give us the right to be on someone else’s property and ignore their rules.

Getting suspended from Twitter sucks. But they own the service. They pay for it. It’s free to us. So it’s not even like getting kicked out of a restaurant where at least we’re paying customers.

It sucks for companies to have their apps pulled from the app stores. But the stores belong to Google and Apple, big, publicly traded companies which have investors and customers to answer to. If your app becomes a fave for violent extremists, they’ll want to distance themselves.

Unless you’re someone who would have no problem with a bunch of strangers coming on your property and doing and saying things that you thought were completely unsuitable for civil society, you already understand this principle.

Yes, we have free speech. But that doesn’t mean that anyone else has to PAY to facilitate our free speech.