In an article for the Washington Examiner last week, writer Mark Grabowski pondered the idea of whether Twitter’s routine censorship could be unconstitutional.

“Most Americans know they can speak their mind in the public square, thanks to the First Amendment. Speech on social media, however, can be censored because private companies own those cyber spaces,” wrote Grabowski on Tuesday. “But a recent Supreme Court oral argument suggests Twitter’s practice of banning controversial right-wing pundits could be deemed illegal.”

Grabowski explained how the internet is now the popular public square, and how legally it should be treated as such.

Driving the California court’s reasoning was a concern that traditional public squares — the old ‘Main Street’ — were giving way to privately-owned businesses. Consequently, the speech rights that Californians enjoyed in these public Main Street spaces would greatly diminish if a town’s center of gravity shifted to a mall and its owners were able to restrict speech because it’s on private property. In the 40 years since that landmark ruling, social media has become society’s modern day public square. Think about it: If I were in the shoes of those California students today and wanted to maximize the number of signatures I got for such a petition, I’d first put it online, and then I’d tweet it to various pro-Israel politicians, celebrities and others with a large number of followers who could easily retweet it and thereby broadcast it to millions of people.

“During the Supreme Court’s recent hearing on North Carolina’s law, justices acknowledged this shift,” Grabowski concluded.

Last year, Gizmodo reported that average internet celebrities can make $75,000 per Instagram advert, and $30,000 per commercial tweet, further complicating the implications that can come from being banished from platforms such as Twitter.

With Twitter’s routine and targeted censorship of conservatives, libertarians, and free speech activists, it is entirely plausible that livelihoods, if sufficiently linked to social media followings, could be destroyed.