Corporate Speech Amendment - squaring rights of corporations with rights of natural persons?

[JamesRussler]

Id rather leave it up to corporations to manage their own content. This seems like an overreaction for conspiracy theorists/conservatives.

"I'm not an Alex Jones fan but..."

(It's almost like the new version of "I have lots of black friends, but...")

... but the danger that large corporations will target individuals or classes of people is not limited to Alex Jones or InfoWars. Until very recently, the Left was consumed by suspicion that Corporate fat cats had simply bought the Republican Party, and that they were paying to essentially keep minorities down. So let's not pretend that Conservatives invented distrust of corporate America (I'm not a Republican btw)

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

You're a pretty devout Libertarian, amirite? IIRC, I read something you wrote on this subject, and you seemed pretty averse to any sort of government intervention whatsoever. I can respect that, even if I disagree.

That said, what should normal people do if big corporations simply decide to target them? We've seen Alex Jones get a taste of this recently, but what if it happened to you? Suppose Google, Facebook, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion all decide that Cubo has to go. As a result, you can't finance anything, nobody can look you up online, and your existence in the modern world becomes unlivable. As a Libertarian, are you content with that so long as they haven't taken the extra effort to kill you? Or at some point, should government step in and perhaps protect life, liberty, and property?

I sympathize with the Libertarian philosophy quite a bit, though I find the actual party a joke.

If you go into any business and start saying things deemed offensive or inappropriate then does the establishment have a right to kick you out? Businesses should also have liberty, shouldn't they?

Using Alex Jones as an example, is he prohibited from having his own site? Looks like I can find him by typing his name into a search engine just as easily as I could typing his name into Youtube. I'm totally against censorship, but at some point it becomes their house so their rules.

 

[Trotsky]

After I wrote the post below, I started to doubt that you're going about this in good faith. You're pretty clearly conflating two entirely different issues under the umbrella of "corporate speech" (corporations donating to/spending on behalf of politicians vs. corporations regulating their own content in a way that censors individuals) and then asking why the importance attached to the first isn't extended to the latter, when the first is of much greater importance to the functionality of government and society.

Oh, I wouldn't say it took much effort.

What is your position on Citizens United? It's my understanding that as a Liberal you're not terribly enamored of the idea that corporate speech merits the same level of Constitutional protection as natural speech.

I'm not sure you're really understanding the issue correctly, and the holdings in Citizens United and SpeechNow have been woefully misrepresented and bastardized through public discourse. Citizens United didn't hold that corporate speech (which is an illusory term to begin with, and in your amendment seems to become blurred into the separate, more distinct concept of commercial speech) is on the same level as natural speech, but rather that it cannot be coherently or justly distinguished pursuant to regulation in this narrow area of campaign finance absent a compelling interest, and that a compelling interest does not exist when expenditures are made independent of a candidate/political office. I think that premise is purposefully naive and overtly political, and in the spirit of conservative jurisprudence willfully ignorant of practical knowledge outside of the ideologically abstract, but I also don't think it's directly related to what you're talking about here.

Assuming that's the case, and setting aside my little fictitious Amendment (above), how would you address the issue of corporate speech? Would you wait for a SCOTUS opinion in your favor? Pass a statute hoping it passes muster? Or has the problem disappeared since big tech corporations are apparently supportive of the Left?

You're conflating, whether purposefully or not, the issue of corporate speech as it comes to corporations affirmatively penetrating public office by spending billions on behalf of politicians and the issue of corporations regulating their own content. Those are completely different issues. I don't think the left ever cared all that much about the issue of corporations regulating their own forums, because it's not a pressing issue: it's just another one of these partisan fads on the right that popped up because some of their more objectionable acolytes like Alex Jones got ousted from social media.

And if you're wanting to be taken seriously, I'd suggest cutting out the "since big tech corporations are apparently supportive of the Left" language, since it just makes you look foolish. Corporations are supportive of their own corporate interests. If you took corporate law or securities law, you should know that that is the only consideration they are allowed to have.

Honestly, it seems like many people on the Left stopped caring about this issue in the age of Trump.

Sadly, in an age when the American left has to carry the entire weight of public interest in the area of law, some considerations get marginalized to the back burner. Penetration of democracy by non-human economic entities is an animal created by and benefiting the political right. Complaining that the left is focusing spraying water on the 500 others fires you guys created and diverting attention away from this one is disingenuous.

 

[Deleted member 196663]

Corporate influence on political speech is something that affects both sides of the political debate. What if we could amend the Constitution to settle this problem once and for all? Consider the following language as an amendment to the Constitution:

The government must not allow a for-profit corporation, which has availed the public of a medium and which hosts content from the public upon that medium, to censor, dissuade, or otherwise abridge the freedom of speech exercised by private persons in content hosted on the corporation's medium.​

Here are a few interpretive notes:

• The Amendment would only apply to "a for-profit corporation." This would include C-corporations, but would exclude non-profits, such as 501(c)(3) corporations and other charitable or purpose-driven organizations. The idea is that entities which are in the business of promoting certain views / priorities will not be hindered. At the same time, normal profit-seeking corporate entities will have to resist wading into cultural / political debates which are quite literally none of their business.
• The Amendment would only apply to corporations which have "availed the public of a medium." This would exclude corporations which limit use of their media to certain viewpoints or classes of people. Hence, a corporation which purports to host "liberal" or "conservative" content would fall outside the scope of the Amendment (e.g., DemocraticHub's board or Breitbart's comment section). It would, however, apply to a corporation which purports to be politically neutral (e.g., Youtube, Facebook, Sherdog, etc.). As long as corporations are transparent about their objectives, this should not be a problem.
• The Amendment would only apply to a corporation "which hosts content from the public upon [the corporation's] medium." Obviously this would not apply to a corporation with its own staff / in-house content creators, or if content is created by third-party professionals (e.g. New York Times). It would apply, however, to many social media sites like Facebook and YouTube which depend on private persons to create and post content. It would also apply to comment sections for purportedly neutral news sites (e.g., New York Times).
• The Amendment would only limit a corporation's ability "to censor, dissuade, or otherwise abridge the freedom of speech exercised by private persons." The term "freedom of speech" is meant to be consistent with its use in the First Amendment. Hence, true threats, incitement, defamation, obscenity, etc., may all be prohibited (the usually are anyway). Similarly, corporations may regulate the time, place, and manner of otherwise permissible content, within reason (they usually are anyway). However, "hate speech" may not be prohibited. Moreover, the "heckler's veto" (false flagging, spamming, etc.) may not be used to silence otherwise permissible viewpoints. If the corporation doesn't like it, it can always close its message board / comment section / video hosting operation. But if it is going to host content from the general public, it may not censor otherwise lawful speech.
• The Amendment would apply only to "content hosted on the corporation's medium." This should be obvious, but if a Google employee retaliates against you for something you said on Sherdog, it does not violate the Amendment.
• Lastly, note that the Amendment specifies that "The government must not allow" corporate censorship. Hence, the government would have an affirmative obligation to regulate corporations in this limited context. If a corporation censors you (as outlined above), ultimately the government has violated your Constitutional right. This doesn't mean that it would be liable for damages – only that it would charged with enforcing this Amendment. Also, because the Amendment does not specify which branch must enforce it, it permits any of the three to act if the others neglect to do so.

It is necessarily implied here that corporate speech rights are subservient to speech rights of natural persons. This would obviously have an effect on the validity of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and other cases regarding corporate speech. Overall, because the scope of this proposed Amendment is so limited, its effect would likely be minimal. Really, all it would do is prohibit giant media / tech corporations from silencing natural persons in the digital "public square."

Question: What do you think? Would the Amendment above solve or help our problems with corporate censorship / political interference? Or would such an amendment only make matters worse? I don't necessarily think the Amendment above is perfect or well-conceived. I'm just starting a conversation about it.

“As long as corporations are transparent about their objectives, this should not be a problem.”

The same way Breitbart doesn’t identity itself a conservative news site is the same reason why MSNBC does not consider itself a liberal channel. They are attempting to position themselves as truth tellers. The entire news game has been essentially corrupted. Interests have taken over, journalistic integrity has been set aside, but they can’t tell us that.

 

[JamesRussler]

Nope.

It's the government making a law regulating speech based on the fact that the people involved have chosen to act as a corporation? Would this apply if Facebook wasn't incorporated? Would it apply to limited partnerships?

Just say "I think this proposed Constitutional Amendment should distinguish between Corporations, LLCs, LLPs, etc."

I chose to put "corporations" since it's shorter than "a legal entity formed by an associations of individuals for the purpose of maximizing profit and limiting liability." Perhaps the Amendment needs a new clause explaining that. It should certainly encompass all publicly-traded C-corps, but no reason it shouldn't apply to an LLC. Which massive social media tech companies are organized as LLCs?

It's targeting only a small portion of the population that's the worst type of law. Even worse since it contradicts the Bill of Rights.

Okay. Yes, we'll strike down this (proposed / fictitious) Constitutional Amendment under the Equal Protection clause

There's a hole in this large enough to drive a tank through. So everyone will declare their media space limited use in their formation documents.

That's not a "hole." That's exactly the point. If YouTube / Facebook declared themselves a platform for liberal views or something like that, they would be able to run their liberal site. My proposed Amendment is actually very permissive.

I hate the idea of a law aimed at controlling the actions of others yet riddled with creating targeted carve outs. It's bad governance.

Well it sounds like you hate the law.

I'm extremely disappointed that a lawyer would put forward any law that requires a private entity to respect the free speech rights of another private entity. We have no free speech rights due to each other within the private sector. Even presenting it suggests that this isn't about a better country but about bullying corporations.

I thought you were convinced that I'm not a lawyer. Nowhere in this post did stand upon my credentials (whatever they may be).

As for you, assuming you're lawyer, what's wrong with a law requiring a private entity to respect rights of private persons? We already have thousands of laws like that. You're really think I'm just "bullying corporations?" Nah. There's only one reason I can think of why this would bother you.

Of course in this new era where we hand out cash to some companies and take it away from others without checking with Congress, I shouldn't be surprised that anyone wants to amend the Constitution for thinly veiled political reasons.

EDIT: On re-read, that's only mildly coherent. I must really dislike the idea.

Dude, the Constitution is a political document. It represents the values of the people who wrote it. I'm guessing you have no problem with the way social media corporations have been behaving lately. That's fine. This Amendment would indeed curtail their speech rights in favor of private citizens. Now we know that this concept bothers you.

 

[JamesRussler]

This would literally make it illegal for Sherdog to dump White Supremacist threads.

Yeah. Yeah it probably would.
Fun fact – the First Amendment prevents the government from sniping White supremacists in the street. You have a problem with the First Amendment too?

 

[JamesRussler]

“Corporations are people, too.” Mr. GOP, Mitt Romney

Yeah, can't stand that guy either

 

[GetTheseHands]

A constitutional amendment would be the right way to go. The left would rather we be relegated by vauge 'hate speech' laws that will be used as a weapon against their enemies. The claim to despise corporations but corporations are their perfect loophole around the constitution

 

[JamesRussler]

I sympathize with the Libertarian philosophy quite a bit, though I find the actual party a joke.

If you go into any business and start saying things deemed offensive or inappropriate then does the establishment have a right to kick you out? Businesses should also have liberty, shouldn't they?

Using Alex Jones as an example, is he prohibited from having his own site? Looks like I can find him by typing his name into a search engine just as easily as I could typing his name into Youtube. I'm totally against censorship, but at some point it becomes their house so their rules.

This proposed Amendment isn't limiting the ability of corporations to speak. It's limiting their ability to censor speech of private persons when they host speech in forums open to the public. If you say offensive things the office, they can still kick you out or fire you.

Continuing on with the Alex Jones example, they haven't scrubbed him completely. They could, and I suspect a lot of people would be happy about that. But then again, I'm not so happy about Google having the ability to scrub anyone from the internet. The "private company, can't judge" paradigm falls apart the more Google comes to resemble a government.

 

[EradiatedHaggis]

I sympathize with the Libertarian philosophy quite a bit, though I find the actual party a joke.

If you go into any business and start saying things deemed offensive or inappropriate then does the establishment have a right to kick you out? Businesses should also have liberty, shouldn't they?

Using Alex Jones as an example, is he prohibited from having his own site? Looks like I can find him by typing his name into a search engine just as easily as I could typing his name into Youtube. I'm totally against censorship, but at some point it becomes their house so their rules.

Like many Libertarian ideals, they are flawed and dont take everything into account.

1. Current internet business are being held ACCOUNTABLE for what is on their sites and that is not the case in non-internet businesses. For example, if you go into a McDonalds and hear a customer say a racist comment, McDonalds cannot be held accountable for it. Or if you are in a Mall and someone kills someone else, the Mall owner is not responsible for it.

2. Sites make MONEY off of people just for going to the site let alone off of people with accounts on them like Youtube which gathers personal information/habits/interests and sells it to other companies. This makes you a CUSTOMER in all sense of the word as the company is making money off of you. It is against the constitution to treat one customer different from the other as it is discrimination.

This is not to be confused by the cake makers refusing to make something for a gay person as they are not customers yet...you do not have a right to be a customer to a business.

As a Libertarian you should be standing for not allowing rights to be infringed upon.

 

[panamaican]

Just say "I think this proposed Constitutional Amendment should distinguish between Corporations, LLCs, LLPs, etc."

I chose to put "corporations" since it's shorter than "a legal entity formed by an associations of individuals for the purpose of maximizing profit and limiting liability." Perhaps the Amendment needs a new clause explaining that. It should certainly encompass all publicly-traded C-corps, but no reason it shouldn't apply to an LLC. Which massive social media tech companies are organized as LLCs?

Yes, you chose to draft an Constitutional Amendment that targets a limited business practice of a limited sector of a single industry. As I said it's the worst reason in the world to draft a Constitutional Amendment.

It shouldn't matter if there are social media tech companies organized as LLCs. It shouldn't matter if they're massive or not. It shouldn't matter if they're profit or non-profit.

That you have all of these limitations and allowances on something as far reaching as a Constitutional Amendment indicates that this isn't the type of thing that should be in the Constitution.

Okay. Yes, we'll strike down this (proposed / fictitious) Constitutional Amendment under the Equal Protection clause

If we're smart, we'd never draft it at all.

That's not a "hole." That's exactly the point. If YouTube / Facebook declared themselves a platform for liberal views or something like that, they would be able to run their liberal site. My proposed Amendment is actually very permissive.

You clearly don't have much corporate law experience. Facebook can make any platform claim they want. That you've limited your perspective to the labels of "liberal" or "conservative" demonstrates part of the problem in this idiotic thought exercise. To wit Facebook could label themselves as American viewpoints or the viewpoints of people born between 1900 and 2018. That would be a limitation to certain viewpoints thus excluding the corporation from your Amendment. Once that minor hurdle is cleared, nothing about what they do afterwards is changed. There is no way to demand that they remove the posts of people born after 2018 or who aren't American. Your Amendment doesn't say that.

Here's an example of how simple your proposal is to disregard. Normally, a corporation is supposed to be formed for a specific purpose. It's common practice for companies to include "...any and all lawful business." A 5 word phrase that allows them to engage in any business despite the legal request that they state a specific purpose for their corporation.

In your model, any half decent lawyer could craft an legally defensible viewpoint that means very little practically and thus remain above your Amendment.

It's a crappy idea where the legal workaround is that easy. You might as well not bother.

Well it sounds like you hate the law.

It sounds like you don't understand the Constitution. But you're right, I do hate your law.

I thought you were convinced that I'm not a lawyer. Nowhere in this post did stand upon my credentials (whatever they may be).

No, I've never questioned if you're a lawyer. I've questioned if you bring this low a level of reasoning into your real life practice.

As for you, assuming you're lawyer, what's wrong with a law requiring a private entity to respect rights of private persons? We already have thousands of laws like that. You're really think I'm just "bullying corporations?" Nah. There's only one reason I can think of why this would bother you.

Well, at the very root of it is that the rights we're discussing are not rights we have to other private persons. Followed by the fact that it attempts to coopt the Constitution for a personal grievance against private corporate action.

And the reason you can only think of one reason this would bother me is because you're not particularly interested in the purpose of the Constitution being a limitation on the government and I am. You're probably making the mistake of thinking that because you're viewing this issue through a partisan lens that the only way anyone else can view it is through the same lens. Wrong, not unusual, but still wrong.

It's a blatant perversion of what our Constitution exists to accomplish. It should bother anyone who cares about what actually makes this country special.

Dude, the Constitution is a political document. It represents the values of the people who wrote it. I'm guessing you have no problem with the way social media corporations have been behaving lately. That's fine. This Amendment would indeed curtail their speech rights in favor of private citizens. Now we know that this concept bothers you.

No, the Constitution is not a political document. It's a legal document. It is the law in fact, not just in theory. Maybe you're confusing it with the Declaration of Independence which is just a political document.

And, no, I have no problem with social media corporations regulating speech on their private platforms. Those platforms are privately owned. I similarly have no problem with radio hosts hanging up on or screening their callers. I have no problem with newspapers refusing to print some op-eds from the public.

I have no problem whatsoever with private media corporations self-regulating.

I do have a problem with people who constantly misuse the freedom of speech to force rules on the speech between 2 private entities.

And I always have a problem with partisan law making.

 

[Fawlty]

Yeah. Yeah it probably would.
Fun fact – the First Amendment prevents the government from sniping White supremacists in the street. You have a problem with the First Amendment too?

If your argument would make it illegal for Sherdog to dump white supremacist threads, your argument is a bust. Start with a fresh legal pad, and next time, do it well enough that some sarcastic guy on a karate forum can't laugh it out of the room in three seconds.

 

[JamesRussler]

After I wrote the post below, I started to doubt that you're going about this in good faith. You're pretty clearly conflating two entirely different issues under the umbrella of "corporate speech" (corporations donating to/spending on behalf of politicians vs. corporations regulating their own content in a way that censors individuals) and then asking why the importance attached to the first isn't extended to the latter, when the first is of much greater importance to the functionality of government and society.

I'm only really talking about limiting the ability of corporate entities to censor people. I brought up Citizens United to remind Liberals that limiting corporate influence used to be a popular idea on the Left.

I'm not sure you're really understanding the issue correctly, and the holdings in Citizens United and SpeechNow have been woefully misrepresented and bastardized through public discourse. Citizens United didn't hold that corporate speech (which is an illusory term to begin with, and in your amendment seems to become blurred into the separate, more distinct concept of commercial speech) is on the same level as natural speech, but rather that it cannot be coherently or justly distinguished pursuant to regulation in this narrow area of campaign finance absent a compelling interest, and that a compelling interest does not exist when expenditures are made independent of a candidate/political office. I think that premise is purposefully naive and overtly political, and in the spirit of conservative jurisprudence willfully ignorant of practical knowledge outside of the ideologically abstract, but I also don't think it's directly related to what you're talking about here.

Respectfully, I know what CU says. Yes, there are conceivably ways to distinguish CU if the government attempted to regulate corporate speech in a way which passed strict scrutiny (there may be a way to do it under prior precedent). But TBH, I was more interested in your opinion on the possibility of an Amendment, not on CU. I did sort of assume we had some common ground regarding the need to protect The People from outsized corporate influence.

You're conflating, whether purposefully or not, the issue of corporate speech as it comes to corporations affirmatively penetrating public office by spending billions on behalf of politicians and the issue of corporations regulating their own content. Those are completely different issues.

No, they're not really different issues in the sense that they both involve the speech rights of corporations. If you see nothing wrong with corporations buying up all the space on the internet and censoring political dissidents there, then I don't see how you have any problem with them buying a few ad spots. Last time I checked, those advertisements didn't cause anyone to be censored.

I don't think the left ever cared all that much about the issue of corporations regulating their own forums, because it's not a pressing issue: it's just another one of these partisan fads on the right that popped up because some of their more objectionable acolytes like Alex Jones got ousted from social media.[QUOTE/]

I have actually cared about this particular issue for a long time. I cared about it back when I considered myself a Liberal. The possibility that large corporations might decide to censor or otherwise harm natural persons is not something I'm okay with.

Consider this scenario: suppose Gab owns a 95% market share of the social media market, and it has decided to ban all the BLM and Antifa profiles. You say "hey man, I'm just trying to advocate for civil rights," but the people are Gab are like "no, fuck you, you're a terrorist, and we don't support terrorists – BANNED." You retreat to Sherdog, but you find that Gab has acquired them too and has hired James Russler as a moderator. He decides you're promoting genocide with your Thomas Sankara avatar – BANNED. Eventually, you realize that corporations shouldn't be allowed to censor speech on the internet because most speech these days actually takes place on the internet.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that if the shoe were on the other foot, you'd care.

And if you're wanting to be taken seriously, I'd suggest cutting out the "since big tech corporations are apparently supportive of the Left" language, since it just makes you look foolish. Corporations are supportive of their own corporate interests. If you took corporate law or securities law, you should know that that is the only consideration they are allowed to have.

If you don't take me seriously, fine. You don't think corporate censorship is a problem. Fine. That's really all there is to say.

[QUPTE]Sadly, in an age when the American left has to carry the entire weight of public interest in the area of law, some considerations get marginalized to the back burner. Penetration of democracy by non-human economic entities is an animal created by and benefiting the political right. Complaining that the left is focusing spraying water on the 500 others fires you guys created and diverting attention away from this one is disingenuous.

K

 

[JamesRussler]

If your argument would make it illegal for Sherdog to dump white supremacist threads, your argument is a bust.

I asked you a question – do you hate the First Amendment because it guarantees racists the right to speak?

 

[Fawlty]

I asked you a question – do you hate the First Amendment because it guarantees racists the right to speak?

I acknowledge that you asked me a question unworthy of a reply.

 

[JamesRussler]

“As long as corporations are transparent about their objectives, this should not be a problem.”

The same way Breitbart doesn’t identity itself a conservative news site is the same reason why MSNBC does not consider itself a liberal channel. They are attempting to position themselves as truth tellers. The entire news game has been essentially corrupted. Interests have taken over, journalistic integrity has been set aside, but they can’t tell us that.

Exactly. If they're Right or Left, they should just say so and open up their registrations only to people on the Right or Left, respectively. If they purport to be neutral, they must treat people neutrally.

 

[JamesRussler]

I acknowledge that you asked me a question unworthy of a reply.

Yeah, yeah. Same old story with you.

 

[JamesRussler]

If we're smart, we'd never draft it at all.

To be fair, that's probably what you'd say about the Second Amendment

You clearly don't have much corporate law experience. Facebook can make any platform claim they want...

Please, tell me all about corporate law. And when you're done, tell me what corporate law has to do with the OP.

Here's an example of how simple your proposal is to disregard. Normally, a corporation is supposed to be formed for a specific purpose. It's common practice for companies to include "...any and all lawful business." A 5 word phrase that allows them to engage in any business despite the legal request that they state a specific purpose for their corporation.

The bottom line is you think you're smart enough to litigate around the Amendment without addressing its substance (a dubious proposition based on what you've written). And from what I can see, you are opposed to the Amendment in substance anyway.

In your model, any half decent lawyer...

You keep trying to go down this route. You already said you went to school. Did you ever graduate? Did you ever pass the Bar? C'mon dude. When someone says "I went to law school" instead of "I'm an attorney," it's almost like a euphemism for "I graduated, but I couldn't pass the Bar after 5 tries, so I gave up and went to mod school."

It's a crappy idea where the legal workaround is that easy. You might as well not bother.

It sounds like you don't understand the Constitution. But you're right, I do hate your law.

Damn dude. What is it about my posts that always gets you so worked up? Chillax.

No, I've never questioned if you're a lawyer. I've questioned if you bring this low a level of reasoning into your real life practice.

Well, at the very root of it is that the rights we're discussing are not rights we have to other private persons. Followed by the fact that it attempts to coopt the Constitution for a personal grievance against private corporate action.

And the reason you can only think of one reason this would bother me is because you're not particularly interested in the purpose of the Constitution being a limitation on the government and I am. You're probably making the mistake of thinking that because you're viewing this issue through a partisan lens that the only way anyone else can view it is through the same lens. Wrong, not unusual, but still wrong.

It's a blatant perversion of what our Constitution exists to accomplish. It should bother anyone who cares about what actually makes this country special.

No, the Constitution is not a political document. It's a legal document. It is the law in fact, not just in theory. Maybe you're confusing it with the Declaration of Independence which is just a political document.

K.

And, no, I have no problem with social media corporations regulating speech on their private platforms. Those platforms are privately owned. I similarly have no problem with radio hosts hanging up on or screening their callers. I have no problem with newspapers refusing to print some op-eds from the public.

I have no problem whatsoever with private media corporations self-regulating.

I do have a problem with people who constantly misuse the freedom of speech to force rules on the speech between 2 private entities.

And I always have a problem with partisan law making.

This is really all you needed to say: You think the proposed Amendment is a bad idea. Boom. Everything else you typed pretty much just gave away the fact that you didn't understand the OP – started going on about corporate law and whatnot. You already hated me (for some reason IDK), so you rushed through looking for a way to tear my post apart. In so doing, you wasted a lot of time and energy.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Corporate influence on political speech is something that affects both sides of the political debate. What if we could amend the Constitution to settle this problem once and for all? Consider the following language as an amendment to the Constitution:

The government must not allow a for-profit corporation, which has availed the public of a medium and which hosts content from the public upon that medium, to censor, dissuade, or otherwise abridge the freedom of speech exercised by private persons in content hosted on the corporation's medium.​

Here are a few interpretive notes:

• The Amendment would only apply to "a for-profit corporation." This would include C-corporations, but would exclude non-profits, such as 501(c)(3) corporations and other charitable or purpose-driven organizations. The idea is that entities which are in the business of promoting certain views / priorities will not be hindered. At the same time, normal profit-seeking corporate entities will have to resist wading into cultural / political debates which are quite literally none of their business.
• The Amendment would only apply to corporations which have "availed the public of a medium." This would exclude corporations which limit use of their media to certain viewpoints or classes of people. Hence, a corporation which purports to host "liberal" or "conservative" content would fall outside the scope of the Amendment (e.g., DemocraticHub's board or Breitbart's comment section). It would, however, apply to a corporation which purports to be politically neutral (e.g., Youtube, Facebook, Sherdog, etc.). As long as corporations are transparent about their objectives, this should not be a problem.
• The Amendment would only apply to a corporation "which hosts content from the public upon [the corporation's] medium." Obviously this would not apply to a corporation with its own staff / in-house content creators, or if content is created by third-party professionals (e.g. New York Times). It would apply, however, to many social media sites like Facebook and YouTube which depend on private persons to create and post content. It would also apply to comment sections for purportedly neutral news sites (e.g., New York Times).
• The Amendment would only limit a corporation's ability "to censor, dissuade, or otherwise abridge the freedom of speech exercised by private persons." The term "freedom of speech" is meant to be consistent with its use in the First Amendment. Hence, true threats, incitement, defamation, obscenity, etc., may all be prohibited (the usually are anyway). Similarly, corporations may regulate the time, place, and manner of otherwise permissible content, within reason (they usually are anyway). However, "hate speech" may not be prohibited. Moreover, the "heckler's veto" (false flagging, spamming, etc.) may not be used to silence otherwise permissible viewpoints. If the corporation doesn't like it, it can always close its message board / comment section / video hosting operation. But if it is going to host content from the general public, it may not censor otherwise lawful speech.
• The Amendment would apply only to "content hosted on the corporation's medium." This should be obvious, but if a Google employee retaliates against you for something you said on Sherdog, it does not violate the Amendment.
• Lastly, note that the Amendment specifies that "The government must not allow" corporate censorship. Hence, the government would have an affirmative obligation to regulate corporations in this limited context. If a corporation censors you (as outlined above), ultimately the government has violated your Constitutional right. This doesn't mean that it would be liable for damages – only that it would charged with enforcing this Amendment. Also, because the Amendment does not specify which branch must enforce it, it permits any of the three to act if the others neglect to do so.

It is necessarily implied here that corporate speech rights are subservient to speech rights of natural persons. This would obviously have an effect on the validity of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and other cases regarding corporate speech. Overall, because the scope of this proposed Amendment is so limited, its effect would likely be minimal. Really, all it would do is prohibit giant media / tech corporations from silencing natural persons in the digital "public square."

Question: What do you think? Would the Amendment above solve or help our problems with corporate censorship / political interference? Or would such an amendment only make matters worse? I don't necessarily think the Amendment above is perfect or well-conceived. I'm just starting a conversation about it.

So wouldn't charging money to run a commercial, be an infringement on my speech?

 

[JamesRussler]

A constitutional amendment would be the right way to go. The left would rather we be relegated by vauge 'hate speech' laws that will be used as a weapon against their enemies. The claim to despise corporations but corporations are their perfect loophole around the constitution

Is it possible that such an Amendment could be "weaponized" against Conservatives?