Corporate America took a big step this week, moving from captives of wokeness to active accomplices. The legal and political consequences may prove profound.

Big Business over the past four years has increasingly signed up for leftist politics. Some of this was "wokewashing," peddling causes or figures for brand benefit—think Nike’s Colin Kaepernick commercial or Lacoste’s replacement of its crocodile logo with endangered species. Some was spinelessness, caving in to the liberal mob—think Goldman Sachs’s refusal to finance fossil-fuel projects. Some was strategic— Twitter and Facebook attempting to ward off regulation with ever-changing policies on "misinformation."

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But the events of last week—the assault on the Capitol and the Democratic Senate takeover—inspired corporate America to take on a new role. Business titans are positioning themselves as arbiters of political speech and activity—by withholding essential services to conservative individuals, companies and groups. They’ve turned themselves into political entities, raising constitutional and antitrust questions.

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This goes way beyond Big Tech’s censoring of Donald Trump and Parler. Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon entered the fray by deploying a bogus rationale for banning the president from the biggest social-media sites, then dismantling the only effective conservative alternative. This alone raises free-speech concerns.

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