Let me be clear (using my Obama voice now): I am
not suggesting that we abolish the rights of private property owners to exclude people, the rights of private companies to generally "refuse service," or the rights of private persons to express opinions through their businesses. That would be a
straw man caricature of my proposal.
I am, however, suggesting that our Constitution should protect the rights of natural persons to speak freely as against powerful associational entities. The key idea is this: sometimes the "rights" of two parties are mutually exclusive, and in that situation, someone's rights must ultimately yield. In the real world, the rights of natural persons to speak freely directly conflict with the rights of multinational corporations to censor opposing views. In other words we can't have our free and open dialogue and also have pervasive corporate censorship too. Accordingly, in the realm of internet speech, I propose that the substantive speech rights of for-profit corporate entities must submit to the substantive speech rights of natural persons. In other words, when the rights of natural persons to enjoy "freedom of speech" are in conflict with the rights of corporations to enjoy the same, the rights of the corporations must yield.
Because I have proposed a Constitutional Amendment, there is no point in arguing that it would "unconstitutional" or that it "violates the First Amendment" (the Constitution is, of course, ipso facto "Constitutional"). Notwithstanding all that, the First Amendment exists precisely because the Framers were concerned that powerful entities would censor dissidents. The Framers wanted to protect the ability of natural persons to engage in public discourse; they did not intend to protect the rights of Google to retaliate against Joe Blow for his support of Donald Trump. When the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments were ratified, the idea that "free speech has consequences" generally meant that
individual persons who disagree are free to exercise their own right to free speech by voting against you, refusing to patronize your business, or excluding you from their property. Never did the Framers envision that large multinational corporations (which have only economic interests, and are generally free from human desires / needs / constraints / consequences) would be able to "deplatform" dissidents at will. The power differential between corporations and natural persons speaks volumes – they can do to you, but you cannot do to them. Consider also the fact that
most "speech" these days takes place online, particularly in the realm of social media. Social media is so ingrained in our societies that one is effectively barred from active participation without it. Had the Framers confronted or foreseen the specter of pervasive corporate censorship, they surely would have acted to prevent it.
You suggested that limiting the ability of corporations to censor people online will lead to abolition of your right to exclude objectionable people from your property or business. Your concern is misplaced. First, social media sites are not perfectly analogous to "brick and mortar" property or businesses. Nobody "owns" the internet, and anyone can access it; users don't physically occupy it the way they might occupy space in a store. Someone may "own" a website, but that essentially boils down to ownership of intellectual property, not physical property. There is perhaps an argument that companies physically own the server space where data is stored, or the labor it took to create a particular site / medium, but that argument is unavailing because the data which creates any particular "room" or "page" on the internet is stored in many places (including on the user's computer). At the end of the day, any "ownership" of a website boils down to intellectual property. Conceptually, you can't actually "exclude" users from your intellectual property, you can only forbid them from "using" it.
So does that mean corporations must allow everyone to "use" their intellectual property at will? Of course not. The Amendment I proposed (above) allows corporations to limit availability of their websites / media to certain classes of people. This can be as simple as a pay wall, or an express designation that the site exists to further Liberal views. If the site is not open to the public, and does not solicit content from the general public, it may censor as it wishes. Many corporations may opt to limit use of their sites / media to a certain class of users, for political reasons. But many more (via market forces) will make their sites / media available to "the public" at large, because that is where the money is. The general public (via market forces) will respond in kind by rewarding those companies with more pervasive roles in public discourse. All I'm suggesting is that
once a for-profit corporation (1) "has availed the public of a medium" and (2) "hosts content from the public upon that medium," it must allow members of the public to freely express themselves on that medium to the extent permitted by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
You've indicated an unwillingness to rein in corporate censorship on grounds that Google (and similar multinational corporations) does not in fact resemble a national government. Respectfully, I disagree. Although its aims may be different, Google has vast power and influence which may potentially affect the lives of billions of people. On top of that, Google tracks locations without consent, monitors interests, monitors speech, and does all manner of surveillance activities which would make most government intelligence agencies blush. That is enough, in my view, to warrant legal protection for the people who must share this planet with the ambitious geniuses at Alphabet / Google. Case in point, if Google decided it wanted to censor Conservative speech, it conceivably could, with or without justification. I am not okay with that, and I believe it is dangerous to even allow for that possibility. It should be illegal. I am not persuaded by the argument that "it's a private company, they can do what they want" (In fact, I don't think anyone truly holds that view – they simply can't see themselves in the corporate crosshairs... yet). These corporations hold an outsized influence which is dangerous to a healthy functioning democracy, and market forces alone are sometimes insufficient to protect the democratic will of the people. Just as we recognized that "trust busting" was necessary to promote competition, I hope we recognize that reining in "Big Tech" is necessary to promote healthy public discourse.
As for "no taxation without representation," I'm not talking about taxing corporations. I'm simply talking about limiting their ability to censor the speech of natural persons in forums which are open to the public.
Cheers!