[EL] Twitter deplatforming a candidate = an in-kind corporate contribution to rivals?

[Thomas Collins]

Professor,

Does the FPPC believe that a hosts refusal to give the mic 🎤 to a
candidate at a forum who consistently violates the terms of the forum be
making a contribution to others in attendance?

Thanks!


Thomas M. Collins
Executive Director
Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission
602-397-6362

On Friday, February 5, 2021, Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu> wrote:

>                 Dear colleagues:  Someone suggested this theory to me, and
> I wanted to look into it.  A quick search suggests that the California
> FPPC, for instance, says that “providing a forum to a candidate without
> charge is considered an in-kind contribution. However, we have also advised
> that where a forum is made available to all candidates for the same office,
> no contribution results.”  Likewise, as I understand it, corporations may
> help sponsor candidate debates, but only if they are structured in an
> evenhanded way.  Would the same logic apply to Twitter allowing one
> candidate to remain on the platform, but banning another (even applying
> facially nonpartisan but viewpoint-based criteria)?
>
>
>
>                 I assume that Twitter, Facebook, and the like would not be
> covered by the media exemption, at least as to their hosting services,
> since they aren’t “any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other
> periodical publication.”
>
>
>
>                 I realize that there’s a separate question whether *Citizens
> United *would protect such decisions by Twitter (which may turn of
> various factors, including whether for constitutional purposes hosting a
> candidate’s Twitter account is treated as an independent expenditure or a
> coordinated one).
>
>
>
>                 Eugene
>
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