The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

Yes, it's not directly an issue of the first amendment, but it's still a topic with discussing since sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook constitute a lot of where discourse takes place these days.

No one is confused. The article mentions neither the First Amendment nor the Constitution. It only calls the matter "un-American." This phrase is clearly a value statement, not some neutral and dispassionate assessment.

The line you draw to separate the government from the private sector is quite useful in other contexts, but does not affect the matter before us today. After all, in a democracy (which the Constitution aspires to be) the ideal of free speech itself must proceed from shared cultural values; if those values change enough, we might also expect the First Amendment to be repealed anyway.

Of course YouTube of course is not required to represent these purportedly-American values; just as surely, it may be criticized as "un-American" by those promulgating such values. A much more interesting argument would assess the extent to which the values in question are, in fact, American, whether YouTube's choices are more representative (surely there's a case for this) or simply more desirable (I note many here agree with them) -- and whether American (or "American") values can coexist with these YouTube values.

That's right up to and including Randal Munroe, who said "The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say"

That's not freedom of speech, that's the first amendment protections of freedom of speech... and it doesn't even adequately describe the protections. There are other things the government isn't allowed to do besides arrest you. They can't force you to say something, either. They can't prohibit certain opinions from being expressed in government owned or regulated channels.

And freedom of speech can be infringed on or limited by other entities than the government.

A better description would be "principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction." This means that if you're forced into silence by threat of retaliation from, say, a religious sect or political group in your area, it's still infringing on your freedom of speech even if they aren't part of the government.

He should be allowed to speak.

No one is obliged to listen.

Free agency supersedes speech. How is expecting anyone else to sit still any less fascist?

Common sense changes in time. It was perfectly common sense 13 colonies belonged to England.

It was perfectly common sense God created reality.

John Stuart Mill covered this in his writing about town drunks; cannot stop biology.

Emit whatever syntax sure. Being owed others to bend their agency to listen or act in accordance with the speech is nonsense.