Jillian York of the EFF writes in an essay for the online site Buzzfeed that the media companies that are currently pushing hateful speakers offline may be making decisions that many of us approve of today, but they might actually have too much power. She makes the argument that companies like Facebook and Twitter, because they are private, don’t have to abide by the First Amendment. They can make decisions about what speech they want to host. Instead, she says, “[T]hey must obey 47 U.S.C. § 230, known colloquially as “CDA 230.” This gives them immunity from liability for most of the content they host, and says they are free to host (or not host) whatever they want.”

I’m not sure exactly what she means by “they are free to host (or not host) whatever they want.” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides ISPs third party immunity for the content their users post, provided that those ISPs don’t create or materially contribute to that content. “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

For a quick overview of ISP immunity see here.