(Originally published by The Atlantic on December 20, 2023)

Conservative lawmakers can’t seem to decide how they feel about government influencing private institutions’ speech policies.

Earlier this month, Congress held a dramatic hearing with the heads of three private corporations that manage important forums for public debate. Members of Congress criticized these leaders in the strongest possible terms for their alleged failure to stem harmful speech on their property. The White House weighed in the next day to denounce the leaders’ equivocal answers, and both the Biden administration and Congress have announced multiple investigations into whether these and other institutions have violated federal law by not cracking down on this speech.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on The Atlantic’s page here)