Jack Balkin

Although courts may ultimately not extend First Amendment privileges to players in virtual worlds, legislatures may well take these claims seriously and extend free speech rights by statute in order to recognize the speech rights of both players and platform owners. Two analogies come to mind. The first is that of private universities, which, although they are nominally private actors, understand themselves to be spaces for the free exchange of ideas. The second analogy is that of telecommunications law. In American telecommunications law, owners of communications networks such as cable companies are both conduits for the speech of cable programmers and speakers in their own right. Much of telecommunications law involves balancing the speech interests of owners of communications networks and independent speakers. To this end, federal cable regulations sometimes require that cable owners respect the free speech interests of independent programmers, for example, by providing public access channels. In like fashion, legislatures and administrative agencies may choose to balance the free speech interests of platform owners with those of the players.