SC Johnson, maker of Drano, Pledge and other household products, is threatening to sue Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter for citing the company’s slogan in the state’s opioid lawsuit against an unrelated, yet similarly named, Johnson & Johnson.

“I am writing to demand that you retract your statements that have appeared in both national and local media citing the SC Johnson tagline, ‘A Family Company.’ If you do not, we will have no choice but to bring suit,” Johnson CEO Fisk Johnson said in a letter to Hunter released Tuesday.

S.C. Johnson says that even after it wrote the Oklahoma AG to warn him he was quoting the wrong company’s slogan, he went on national television and repeated the talking point.

Not to say anyone should be suing over this, but if AG Hunter didn’t know the difference between New Jersey-based pharma giant Johnson & Johnson, which he was suing for $ billions, and Racine, Wis.-based S.C. Johnson, the family-owned Johnson’s Wax company, it kind of makes my point about the demagogic populism fueling these cases. [earlier] And maybe also my point about how the private trial lawyers on contingency fee, whose expectation for a multi-billion-dollar payday will have to be met if the mass litigation is to settle, are the real brains of the opioid-suit operation.

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[J]ust after Twitter and Facebook appeared before Congress, the DOJ released a statement saying that it was investigating whether or not actions by the big internet companies was “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas.” The full statement was short and to the point:

We listened to today’s Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Foreign Influence Operations’ Use of Social Media Platforms closely. The Attorney General has convened a meeting with a number of state attorneys general this month to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.

The competition question is one that the DOJ’s antitrust division clearly has authority over, but alarms should be raised about the DOJ or state AGs arguing that these platforms are “stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.” Because while — on its face — that might sound like it’s supporting free speech, it’s actually an almost certain First Amendment violation by the DOJ and whatever state AGs are involved.

There are lots and lots of cases on the books about this, but government entities aren’t supposed to be in the business of telling private businesses what content they can or cannot host. Cases such as Near v. Minnesota and Bantam Books v. Sullivan have long made it clear that governments can’t be in the business of regulating the speech of private organizations — though those are both about regulations to suppress speech.

More: “How Regulating Platforms’ Content Moderation Means Regulating Speech – Even Yours” [Cathy Gellis]; John Samples, Cato Daily Podcast on Trump’s comments about Google searches; Federalist Society debate on social media antitrust; “if you’re going to make an allegation that there’s a big [anti-conservative] conspiracy [on search engine results], you should do your due diligence.” [Zachary Graves] Earlier here, etc.

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“Aren’t the plaintiffs using the product?” Keenan asked. “Does the city have clean hands?”

“Yes, the city uses fossil fuels,” [plaintiff’s attorney Matthew] Pava responded.

[Larry Neumeister, AP/ABC News] More: John O’Brien/Forbes, Erin Mundahl, Inside Sources (15 state attorneys general file amicus brief on defendants’ side]

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