"This rhetoric sounds nice—“free expression” and “in a democracy” are the phrasal equivalents of American-flag lapel pins—but it doesn’t amount to much. It’s one thing for Zuckerberg to build the world’s biggest microphone and then choose to rent that microphone to liars, authoritarians, professional propagandists, or anyone else who can afford to pay market rate. It’s another, more galling thing for him to claim that he is doing so for everyone’s benefit. And yet many of the members of Congress at last week’s hearing—the Republican ones, to be precise—seemed to take Zuckerberg’s rationale at face value. “I do want to commend you,” Andy Barr, a G.O.P. congressman from Kentucky, said. “I don’t want you to be bullied by politicians to relinquish our treasured free speech under the First Amendment.” Free speech is treasured indeed. It is also, in a discussion about Facebook’s policies, a canard: the First Amendment restricts government, not private companies. Bill Posey, a Republican from Florida, also encouraged Facebook to resist any temptation “to censor its users’ speech.” He was particularly concerned about one form of censorship: “I was disappointed that Facebook would consider restricting free-speech rights to communicate the risks associated with vaccinations.”