This is a late stage capitalism issue where too much power has been consolidated into the hands of too few, and so much as a single comment made publicly can blacklist you from participating in any cultural event for the rest of your life.
Think of how many radio stations, venues, internet channels etc have been bought up by megacorp.
We have all the bad parts of a Gibson cyberpunk dystopia and none of the flying cars or bio-enhancements.
in the sense in which the entire constitutional apparatus is falling appart
because citizen-president Trump is a power bully
but this was bound to happen. as we transition from orality to literacy to digital-literacy and beyond
consider why the laws are written down. consider the way language became computer languages. and then realize that what was written down must now grapple with the new technological paradigm of digital paper that writes on itself
it's like we have (re-)discovered paper and the very idea of writing down the law is a techno-social innovation sweeping the land
If the state doesn't in fact do these things then you have a different state and the constitution is just a piece of paper.
It absolutely is not. In fact it is a restriction on the state.
The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are inherent. They are not derived from the government. We have them by nature of existing. The Bill of Rights prohibits the government from infringing on these inherent rights.
> 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.
It precisely says the government cannot limit your speech and is intentionally silent about everyone else.
You have people in this thread asserting that freedom of speech is an inherent right while simultaneously supporting a corporation's ability to infringe that right and suppress speech through petty punishments.
Your main problem is that you're misconstruing the nature of freedom. Freedom isn't merely freedom from things, it's also the freedom to actually do things.
> It only says that government won't make laws restricting it.
These are the same thing. Further, private corporations have editorial control over what they allow in their publications or on their platforms which is also free speech. Or are you suggesting that the New York Times is required by The First Amendment to publish every letter it receives? That a website is required to leave scam comments or spam up? The no corporate owned platform can moderate in any way?