The myth of the ‘marketplace of ideas’— and how it warps free speech

The so-called “marketplace of ideas” doesn’t simply reward truth or the strongest arguments— it rewards power. Without guardrails, the strongest players dominate while minority views are sidelined. Mary Anne Franks, professor at George Washington Law, warns nowhere is this more apparent than under Trump, who owns his own social media platform and uses it as a propaganda megaphone. The marketplace, as an idea, Franks says, “is not designed to get us truth or democracy or autonomy or any of the things that we think the First Amendment is supposed to get us.” Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor at Slate, adds, about the First Amendment, “There's both too much law and not enough law and an immense amount of abuse of the space between the two.”