Facebook has long had the same public response when questioned about its disruption of the news industry: it is a tech platform, not a publisher or a media company.

But in a small courtroom in California’s Redwood City on Monday, attorneys for the social media company presented a different message from the one executives have made to Congress, in interviews and in speeches: Facebook, they repeatedly argued, is a publisher, and a company that makes editorial decisions, which are protected by the first amendment.

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Daphne Keller, of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, said Section 230 was designed to allow platforms like Facebook to do some moderation and make editorial decisions without generally being liable for users’ posts: “They need to be able to make discretionary choices about content.”