March 25 (Reuters) - The opinions expressed here are

those of the author, a correspondent for Reuters. This column is

part of the Reuters Sustainable Finance Newsletter, which you

can sign up for here - https://www.reuters.com/newsletters/reuters-sustainable-finance/

We Americans pride ourselves on respecting freedom of

speech, enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S.

Constitution that prohibits government meddling in our

expressions, worship, assembly and writing.

But legally the framework does not apply to private

companies. The growth of social media has created a host of

cases in which employees find themselves disciplined or fired

for comments they considered routine, however sharp. Sometimes

the consequences came in the wake of popular backlash against

their employers, a dynamic known as "cancel culture."

For instance my colleagues reported in November on how more

than 600 people faced consequences over posts they made in the

wake of the assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk,

in some cases noting his support for gun rights. Some said a

variation of "good riddance," mocked his death or invoked

"karma." This brought pressure on their employers to act,

including school boards and an airline. Many Republican

officials embraced the punitive campaign in response to what

some saw as reveling in Kirk's death.

"Call them out, and, hell, call their employer," said U.S.

Vice President JD Vance at one point.

In another case in 2024, Honeywell ( HON ) defeated a lawsuit from

an engineer who claimed he was fired over his refusal to

participate in diversity, equity and inclusion training.

It seems important to understand just how much our

institutions should protect our free speech, as social media

platforms grow and as President Donald Trump's administration

cracks down on universities and news media.

For guidance I spoke with Aaron Terr, director of public

advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and

Expression.

The Philadelphia-based group known as FIRE once was seen as

conservative-aligned for its skepticism of university speech

policies. Lately FIRE has gained liberal fans for stances like

defending The Des Moines Register newspaper and its pollster

staffer against a lawsuit from Trump.

The following transcript of our conversation has been edited

for length and clarity. (Our talk took place before news came

late on Tuesday that the Trump administration agreed to a

settlement that will bar three federal agencies from pressuring

social media companies to remove or suppress speech. Let's keep

an eye on what difference that makes.)

Terr: Censorship is always a bipartisan threat. It's really

not so much the province of the left or the right, but it's the

province of whoever is in power. The Trump administration has

amply demonstrated how to use the levers of power to censor

speech that those in power don't like.

When you talk about private companies, they don't have any

obligation under the First Amendment to respect the freedom of

speech of their employees, but there are normative arguments you

can make about how they should treat the speech of their

employees and how they should regulate it.

There's also a concern about what what's called 'jawboning,'

where you have pressure from government officials that may

influence or even in some cases coerce private actors, to

regulate speech in a certain way.

Question: Employers technically can put a lot of

restrictions on, or can fire employees, for what they say and

do. But your advice is that we'd be a better society if

companies gave their employees like more leeway, at least when

they're off the clock?

Terr: That's right. When you look at social media companies,

a lot of them commit to free speech. Although they don't have to

allow any particular speech on our platforms, if they're serious

they would have policies that broadly give users wide latitude

to express different viewpoints without being kicked off or

having their post deleted.

I would also point out that in the wave of firings over the

Charlie Kirk comments, there were a lot of examples of people

who weren't celebrating his death but were just being critical

of his views or critical of what they saw as the whitewashing of

his legacy (or) criticizing his influence on American politics

-- and still facing discipline or calls for them to be fired.

As a general matter, we want Americans to be able to have a

job and a political opinion. Our concern is that you're going to

have millions of Americans walking on eggshells and reluctant to

speak about political issues and current events for fear of

losing their livelihoods. It's not good for Americans to have

First Amendment rights, but then just be totally afraid to

exercise them.

Question: How well have S&P 500 (companies) protected

freedom of speech in all its manifestations?

Terr: I don't think private businesses by and large have

done a great job of resisting these online outrage campaigns,

going back to 2020.

I think whenever you have some major cultural flash point,

whether it's the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the murder of

George Floyd, the October 7th attacks on Israel, in these

moments people will say things, people will have reactions and

people who disagree with them (will be) on edge about whatever

incident or event or crisis is taking place.

In a lot of these cases the companies do buckle under. They

have shown a lack of will in resisting these campaigns. They

many times actually miscalculate. I think many times the

attention spans of these social media mobs are very short.

If all companies got together and said ... 'we're not just

going to do it because of demands from the government or some

mob stoked by a social media influencer,' I think that would

have a great effect. But no one company wants to be the one to

go out on that limb.

Question: A big recent example is the case of talk show host

Jimmy Kimmel and how he left the air for a couple of days. Do

you think his employer, Disney ( DIS ), handled the situation correctly?

Terr: After they brought Kimmel back, his next show was one

of the highest rated shows. Which I think was a hopeful sign

that at least when this pressure is coming from the government,

it's not popular. People don't want agencies like the FCC

deciding what a late night host can say.

Disney ( DIS ) shouldn't have taken Kimmel off the air in the first

place, that was a mistake.