Is There A First Amendment Right To Tweet?

Last month, TikTok user @nas.alive asked people to answer the question: "What's one thing that is normal in your country but weird for the rest of the world?" It took off. Missing among the videos of bagged milk (Canada), nose-touching (UAE), live fish dwelling in bathtubs (Slovakia), and other global oddities was a primer on the First Amendment (U.S.).

The First Amendment limits the government—not private entities—from restricting free expression. This is why companies like Facebook and Twitter can moderate content—and also why they could suspend then-President Donald Trump's accounts during his last weeks in office. While many Americans applauded this move as an appropriate response to the violent Capitol insurrection, unexpected critics emerged in corners of the globe where the American version of free speech is considered, well, weird.