First Amendment

The First Amendment, as applied theory and a legal concept, has a timeline that parallels the development of early American social networks dedicated to political and social causes. The 1789 Constitution and its Bill of Rights were ratified by the states in an era when the first political actors in the United States, the Federalists and Republicans, were the catalysts for numerous political debates, including the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers. The First Amendment discusses five liberties: religion, press, speech, assembly, and petitioning government. As noted by Nat Hentoff, these were important freedoms to the Founding Fathers based on early American colonial experiences with Great Britain. The U.S. Supreme Court has been the deciding arbiter of how far First Amendment freedoms extend in society. It has guided the nation in understanding that these freedoms are not absolute and come with certain restrictions. All five segments of the First Amendment apply to social networking groups and organizations, but the one common portion of the law applicable to all is the freedom of speech clause.

“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.” Each of these clauses of the law restricts the federal government from intruding into individual or group rights and activities, including those of social networks. Each [Page 291]of these elements is applicable to the rights of social network groups and organizations. Depending on their goal(s), each part of the First Amendment can play a vital role in the activities of a social network.

First Amendment rights are not without limits. Many of these limits tend to be in the speech portion of the law, but depending on the circumstances of a First Amendment controversy, they can include the other clauses: press, religion, peacefully assembling, and petitioning government officials. The Supreme Court is the branch of government that has mainly delineated any restrictions on First Amendment rights. As Cass Sunstein points out in analyzing low-value speech, in a wide range of cases, the court has ruled that any speech that does not contribute to the knowledge or advancement of American society or harms an individual is placed beyond any legal protection. The court has specified that the following activities are not protected forms of speech: obscenity, child pornography, false advertising, invasion of privacy, libel, threats, and incitement to violence. Additionally, other federal laws passed by Congress prohibit certain speech acts that harm individuals. In the current age of Internet-based communication, social network groups need to be aware of their First Amendment rights and restrictions.

With the speech clause, the Supreme Court has given wide latitude in how far these freedoms exist unless the speech involves one of the aforementioned categories. In its freedom of press decisions, the Supreme Court often does not thematically separate the terms press and speech. In the court's view, press is a form of speech that conveys an idea in a published format. Throughout the 20th century, the court issued decisions related to political social networks' publications and interchanged the “speech” and “press” clauses in its rulings.

...