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Some people are looking to the First Amendment to be the solution to our problems in the digital public sphere.

And I think there's a real question. Can the First Amendment be a solution here?

But there's also a question. Is the First Amendment the problem?

Yeah. Hi, and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court and the rule of law.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick.

I cover some of those things for Slate.

This past week has seen confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland to serve as the new Attorney General, bitter division around a COVID relief package, and bitter division around a voting rights bill.

And we're also seeing some signaling from the Supreme Court about the future of voting rights in the courts. But we wanted to turn our gaze up and out this episode to talk about

the First Amendment. Everybody everywhere, I promise, is mad right now about somebody taking

away their right to speak. But if the First Amendment is

unerringly the answer, it's at least possible we might be asking the wrong question.

So we wanted to consider speech and the regulation of speech, all the ways in which, as I am

at least coming to understand it, the so-called marketplace of

ideas is at the mercy of a real-life market. And all of this touches on our current global

politics, who regulates speech on Facebook and on Twitter, and who gets to impose consequences

when speech is inciting of violence.

Later on in the show, Slate Plus listeners are going to get to hear from the wonderful Mark Joseph Stern for an exclusive segment,

looking at the new shape of the Supreme Court, some hints on voting rights,

and also the uncanny commonalities in who gets hit with what

amounts of vitriol in the ongoing confirmation process for Justice Department positions.

...