Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

Do anti-BDS laws mean the ADL has an identity crisis? Or they should be having one? They seem related to their mission.

I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not an expert in the first amendment, its case law, or anti-BDS laws. You might be right that some or all anti-BDS laws violate some first amendment right in some way. I don’t know which analogy is the right one to apply to anti-BDS laws, something different legal scholars and lawyers argue about. It seems like reasonable people can disagree about what is constitutional and what is not here. Maybe the supreme court will rule on it specifically, and even then it might still be the case that reasonable people can disagree.

"Any government regulation of speech or published material is destructive to free society."

Hopefully you immediately think of exceptions: illicit pornography, fire in a theater, ingredient labels/active ingredient listings, directly false marketing, misrepresenting contracts, direct physical threats/"fighting words," convincing someone to commit suicide, intellectual property related speech, advertisements to kids, speech in the military, speech under NDA's, security clearance related information, publicly accusing someone of a crime they didn't commit. Maybe you might think speech is different whether it's from a citizen or non citizen. Maybe it's different from a corporation and a person. Maybe it's different if speech is done in good faith (because a person honestly believes their words) or bad faith (because someone wants to manipulate somebody). Maybe the mode of speech matters, whether it's internet, radio, spoken word, telephone, or otherwise.

Referring to free speech in indirect terms creates a problem, because it denies the grey. Free speech arguments are all about determining the correct gradient of grey for society. Being able to identify and understand grey area is a strong signal of being informed. The grey area is why people who are knowledgeable are unsure and people who know nothing are confident. One sees complexities, the other is blind to them.

Every person on the planet being able to publish a message that can be read by every human (twitter) is something the human race has never had to face before. Facebook can choose to promote hateful speech with algorithms and incite hatred through doing so, gaining them engagement (addiction) in the process. Is that healthy for society? Is fox news healthy? On the other side is CNN (fake news?) healthy? Should China/Russia be able to purchase American airtime? Should American celebrities and businesses be protected from having their speech coerced by foreign powers?

Reasonable people can come to different conclusions on what it means for speech to be "free", what counts as speech, what context around the speech matters, and what entities should get "free speech" protection.