Is there an obligation to have social media?

After reading that it is a “respectable legal position” for Twitter to “exclude anyone it elects to from its platform” (988), I was curious to learn more about the case cited to justify the claim - Moody v. NetChoice LLC. When reading the facts of the case, I was surprised to read that they took as fact that “users have no obligation to consume or contribute to the content on [social media] platforms”. This feels wrong to me because I do feel an “obligation” to be on social media platforms, and algorithms push content that I might not want to see.

Perhaps this stems from a generational divide, because the social pressure to be on social media is admittedly the biggest. But, in terms of strict obligation, many people have no choice but to be on social media sites that dictate their workplace infrastructure (e.g. LinkedIn, Handshake, FB), their social life (Instagram, FB, X), their access to news, etc. To me, our current society necessitates that people use such platforms to live a fulfilling and worthwhile life. Sure, it is possible to not “consume or contribute to the content on [social media] platforms”, but in most modern American cities/towns, it greatly inhibits one’s wellbeing not to.

In Unfit to Print, Shiffrin treats access to private platforms as a convenience that can be withheld without cutting speakers off from civic life. She states that govt officials still have “their own official communication channels,” so “the withdrawal of private platforms of distribution would not constitute full enforcement” (1016). A few pages later, she says that permanent de‑platforming is “not a comprehensive ban,” because alternatives such as self‑publication remain open . That assumption lines up with the idea that there is no obligation to be on social media platforms, but clashes with how modern speech functions. For ordinary citizens (and employers and all news consumers), social media is the epitome of opinion and fact sharing. If you can’t join, you don’t just lose an audience, but you also lose the platform in which everyone else is already talking.

This gap matters because Shiffrin’s central idea is that “private parties could play a key role in maintaining the vitality of nonjusticiable constitutional norms” (1026). Because “government officials increasingly use private media platforms to disseminate their messages unburdened by editorial hurdles, fact‑checking, or commentary,” she argues, those companies “should play a role in voluntarily enforcing constitutional standards by refusing to disseminate unconstitutional [...] government speech” (993). That rests on two other ideas, which she lays out. (1) Pulling the plug on an official’s account must ensure “social free speech culture remains robust and open” (1017), and (2) Citizens themselves must still have “substantial breathing room” (993) to consider and discuss mistaken views and facts. Both points lean on the idea that access to Facebook, X, TikTok, etc. is a choice—and therefore a privilege that can be revoked without major collateral damage.

This leaves me with some questions: If social media access now functions less like a social choice and more like a civic utility, do we need some infrastructure that has stricter duties of neutrality and due process? What becomes of Shiffrin’s optimistic vision of platform self‑policing once we admit that exclusion from these spaces can meaningfully stunt a person’s social, professional, and political life? Perhaps the biggest question isn’t whether users have an “obligation” to be online, but whether lawmakers now have an obligation to treat that online space as something more than optional. - Eliot