Well, free speech through the First Amendment of our Constitution is only protected from interference from the government. Nothing is protected about private platforms. Google is free to implement whatever policies they want. Thus the point is kind of moot because this isn’t the government interfering with free speech at all.
If it were though, I think it would indeed be a tricky can of worms. Some aspects of “talking” about criminal activity are considered illegal: for example, Conspiracy to Commit Offense [1] makes it illegal to conspire to do criminal activity.
Freedom of Speech was really meant to protect people from being able to criticize the government without fear of being disappeared. Great article on the history of that clause here [2].
Comments
Well, free speech through the First Amendment of our Constitution is only protected from interference from the government. Nothing is protected about private platforms. Google is free to implement whatever policies they want. Thus the point is kind of moot because this isn’t the government interfering with free speech at all.
If it were though, I think it would indeed be a tricky can of worms. Some aspects of “talking” about criminal activity are considered illegal: for example, Conspiracy to Commit Offense [1] makes it illegal to conspire to do criminal activity.
Freedom of Speech was really meant to protect people from being able to criticize the government without fear of being disappeared. Great article on the history of that clause here [2].
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371
[2] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1_2_1/