Fox’s Napolitano to Trump: First Amendment ‘does not regulate Twitter’

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano said Wednesday that President Trump faces an uphill battle with his threat to regulate social media platforms like Twitter.

“The First Amendment, which guarantees the freedom of speech and of the press since it only regulates the government, does not regulate Twitter,” the former New Jersey Superior Court judge said on “America’s Newsroom.”

“Twitter can take down, modify or correct any user it wants, including the president of the United States,” Napolitano added.

His comments come a day after Trump accused Twitter of “stifling” free speech after the site fact checked one of his tweets about voting by mail, a first for the company. The following day he threatened to “strongly regulate, or close them down,” referring to social media platforms.

Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020

“Under a Supreme Court opinion that the president likes, called Citizens United, Twitter has freedom of speech just like you and I and the president himself,” Napolitano said Wednesday. “The president can say what he wants about Twitter and they can say what they want about him.”

But Napolitano added that Twitter has put itself in a precarious position by fact-checking Trump.

“Twitter will lose a lot of credibility and make itself a target if they only fact-checked President Trump and not Joe Biden and not other leading nationally known political figures,” Napolitano said.

He added that Trump was right about one thing with his criticisms of Twitter.

“The president is right about the bias in social media, and the president is also understandably not happy about his being fact-checked,” Napolitano said.