The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.
—Marshall McLuhan
The president, along with multiple governors and state officials, has been sued on First Amendment grounds for blocking users from accessing his social media pages and for deleting critical comments on his pages and comment sections. Instantaneous communications technologies are bringing distant people into closer and more frequent contact. Communication is taking place on the internet now more than ever, and in turn, First Amendment concerns are currently more evident on Twitter and Facebook than in the public squares of yore. With McLuhan in mind, this Note discusses relevant First Amendment doctrines, examines the emerging social media litigation involving the president and government officials, and advocates for a “mixed-speech” approach for analyzing speech issues on social media platforms.
