The first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

A lot of people believe that this amendment applies everywhere. However, that’s not the case. Private entities or platforms do not have to abide by the first amendment. An example? Twitter.

Over the past few weeks, Twitter has been removing accounts linked to conservative pundit Alex Jones and conservative news outlet InfoWars. Jones was banned in September, but he was thought to be using multiple accounts.

Twitter has not released an official statement (at the time of writing) citing that they do not comment on specific accounts.

Some people online have been claiming that this is illegal, citing the first amendment. However, since Twitter is a private company, they can do as they please. In other words, if Twitter wanted to censor everyone that used the word “veishea” in a tweet, they could.

As part of InfoWars’s 2018 midterm coverage, a video was posted on their website on October 24th titled “TWITTER ERASES INFOWARS ACCOUNTS WITH NO EXPLANATION: BANNED 2018 MIDTERM COVERAGE.”

In the video, Owen Shroyer responds to the recent bans: “You can go ahead and shove your censorship where the sun don’t shine.”

InfoWars has every right to be mad. However, Twitter most likely won’t budge.

Twitter banned the most recent accounts on the 22nd. Since then (as of October 25th), their stock has risen from $28.72 to $32.72.

Obviously the recent bans haven’t hurt the platform too much.

Every citizen of the United States has the right to free speech. But in the end, private companies that you agree to use can do as they wish when it comes to censorship.