Recently, I've noticed a lot of "free speech" oriented rhetoric within conservative groups in response to social media controversies, such as NYT 's decision to hire Sarah Jeong, who has a history of making anti-white racist comments on Twitter . Opponents to the NYT 's decision claim that the left is presuming a double-standard in which they oppose racism from whites but condone it from minorities.

Although such claims of a double-standard are valid, the opposition goes too far when they condemn social media platforms and media companies of preserving free speech for the left, while denying this same freedom to the right.

As a small social experiment, Candace Owens, the Communications Director at TPUSA , posted some of the same tweets as Jeong, but swapped "white" with "jewish" and "black". As a result, Owens was immediately suspended from Twitter, while Jeong's account has yet to face any repercussions.

In response to a news article detailing Owens' ban, a redditor made the following comment, demanding that government step in to protect free speech:

Very quickly has the idea that social media platforms are attacking free speech propagated across the conservative community.

In a similar incident where the podcast platform Stitcher removed Alex Jone's podcast from their site, an editor of Breitbart condemned Stitcher as anti-free speech:

However, such accusations and condemnations are based in fundamental misunderstanding of what free speech and property rights are. The freedom of speech simply grants every citizen the right to say whatever they want without fear of confiscation, imprisonment, or any other form of government retaliation. The freedom of speech does not require that a private company allow any content to be uploaded to their platform.

Claiming that a private company, such as Twitter or Stitcher , should be forced to host whatever content their users upload is not a move to protect free speech. Rather, it's an attempt to attack that company's property rights. You can say whatever you want in a free society without fearing property confiscation or imprisonment. However, a company doesn't have to preserve what you have to say. If they feel that your content is hurting their reputation, thus costing them customers and consequently profits, they reserve the right to remove your content. If this decision results in the lashing-out of different groups, they will face the economic impact of making an unpopular decision.

The important thing is that all consequences of censoring certain content by a given company on their platform be economic, not legal.