Can a Marsh beat a Swamp? Yes, if the Supreme Court precedent in
Marsh v. Alabama is applied by Congress, the court or state legislatures to save free speech on the Internet.
Marsh was the 1946 Supreme Court case which found that First Amendment protections for free speech can be applied to private sector actors in some circumstances. In the case, a company town owned by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corp. sought to bar free speech on its sidewalks, claiming that the First Amendment only proscribed government censorship, not private sector actions.
In a 5-3 decision authored by First Amendment champion Hugo Black, the high court disagreed, finding that when the private sector actor owns and controls the de facto public square, then Americans’ constitutional protections still apply. Black wrote, To act as good citizens they must be informed. In order to enable them to be properly informed their information must be uncensored. . When we balance the constitutional rights of