5 ms·

Can I create a video and post it on my private youtube channel, as a private individual? Can I spend $10 million creating the youtube video, if I have that muc

Can I create a video and post it on my private youtube channel, as a private individual? Can I spend $10 million creating the youtube video, if I have that much money as a private individual? Can I organize a group of 10 friends to each spend $1 million on the youtube video? Can I organize 1 million people to spend $10 each on said video? Note that under McCain-Feingold (which is the law that was at issue in Citizens United) the answer to the second question is "yes", as far as I can tell: the law instituted restrictions on corporations and unions, not on rich individuals. Whether the answer is "yes" for the second and third question would have depended on whether youtube counts as "broadcast, cable, or satellite communication" as well as whether a gofundme campaign should fund under the law, and so forth. So it's really not that hard to come up with loopholes around this stuff, if you want to allow spontaneous grassroots production of political youtube videos. (Also, one person's "political ad" is another person's "documentary", often enough; this goes in both directions.)

int_19h 9y ago
Most laws have loopholes, just as most software has bugs. You try to anticipate them when you write the law, and you keep an eye on them and amend the law as necessary.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  It's not that simple in this case, because for my first question the answer really needs to be "yes" as a clear First Amendment matter: individual political speech is clearly protected, and video is a common "speech" medium nowadays. So that's a "loophole" that is pretty much required by the Constitution. It's really not clear to me how one can draw a sane line between the first and second question, for this case, unless you want to forbid any political video that actually takes time/effort/money to do research for (see "documentary"). And then the problem becomes that either you privilege the political speech of rich individuals over non-rich ones even more than we already do, or you have to allow non-rich individuals to pool resources to speak. The "loophole" is then.. what exactly? What form the pooling takes? Whether the pooling is voluntary? Something else? I see a lot of people who are unhappy with the Citizens United decision, but not many proposals for what the law on this should be apart from "political speech from organizations I disagree with should not be allowed". For example, I see lots of "corporations shouldn't be able to engage in political speech" but very little of "unions shouldn't be able to engage in political speech" from Citizens United opponents. Amusingly, I see a fair amount of "unions shouldn't be able to engage in political speech" from people who support the Citizens United decision. And I have met absolutely no one who opposes the Citizens United decision and also thinks Michael Moore shouldn't be allowed to create movies in election years. Though I expect such people do exist; there just aren't many of them.
  - deong 9y ago
    You're 100% right. What I'd say is that we as a society have to make a choice between preserving the full range of protected speech we all enjoy and curtailing the degree to which the democratic process has been corrupted by the unlimited need for private money to run a campaign. I'm not personally convinced I know which of those two options is preferable, but those are the options. I am fairly well convinced that you can't do the latter without the former.
  - pikzen 9y ago
    >corporations shouldn't be able to engage in political speech Corporations should be able to engage in political speech, as long it is done through their CEO or anyone that represents them officially, who then would be nothing more than just another citizen who happens to own a company, defending its interests. By all means, have an interesting debate, explain your point of view, reason as to why you'd like X or Y. Money is _not_ speech. By allowing those citizens to contribute financially, in an effectively unlimited way through superPACs and other setups, you are throwing away the very foundation of democracy and equality amongst citizens when it comes to being represented. >unions shouldn't be able to engage in political speech Go ahead, same thing, debate! Make yourselves heard, in the streets or on television. But, once again, money can fuck right off.
    - jimmyk 9y ago
      >you are throwing away the very foundation of democracy and equality amongst citizens when it comes to being represented. There is no such foundation. You're lying to yourself. At the very least, the owners of media outlets have far more influence than other citizens due to their ability to set the conversation. There is literally nothing you can do to achieve your ridiculous ideal of equality, or to even come anywhere close to it. All you can do is change what rich people have to do to get what they want, and maybe make it more expensive. And by the way, making it more expensive just means the richest get even more of a say. >money can fuck right off. So I can't pay someone to build a website that (directly or indirectly) promotes a candidate?
      - 9y ago
pikzen 9y ago
>Can I create a video and post it on my private youtube channel, as a private individual? Yes. >Can I spend $10 million creating the youtube video, if I have that much money as a private individual? Yes. However, if it turns out that those ten million were gathered from other friends, explicitly in the goal to make this video without disclosing your donors or ignoring the caps, you should be fined and be made unelectable for multiple years. >Can I organize a group of 10 friends to each spend $1 million on the youtube video? Not if that video is part of your campaign, because then the amount each person can donate is capped. >Can I organize 1 million people to spend $10 each on said video? Yes. The only real problem in those four is the third. Because it is infinitely easier to organize only ten friends to donate one million to your campaign than to organize one million people, especially if you're already in the category of people that can afford to blow ten millions like that. As a bonus, at least having one million people donating to you demonstrates that you actually have people following you.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  This was apparently not clear: in all those questions the "I" posting the video is not the person running. That's the context of the Citizens United decision.
  - pikzen 9y ago
    Then you are more than welcome to blow as much money as you'd like on your favourite candidate! And since it's on Youtube, noone is "forced" to watch your video, they can always switch to something else. However, TV and cable channels (as well as press) should have strict equality rules when it comes to candidates for a given period until the elections. What good will your ten million dollars video do on CNN when they are legally obligated to give every candidate the same amount of air time? But of course, you could skirt around it, and make your video subtly hint about said candidate, never mentioning him. But if countries with civil law can manage to make that work when it comes to respecting the spirit of the law, I have no doubt a country with common law will have no issues realizing that this is quite obviously violating the spirit of the law.

int_19h 9y ago

Most laws have loopholes, just as most software has bugs. You try to anticipate them when you write the law, and you keep an eye on them and amend the law as necessary.

bzbarsky 9y ago
It's not that simple in this case, because for my first question the answer really needs to be "yes" as a clear First Amendment matter: individual political speech is clearly protected, and video is a common "speech" medium nowadays. So that's a "loophole" that is pretty much required by the Constitution. It's really not clear to me how one can draw a sane line between the first and second question, for this case, unless you want to forbid any political video that actually takes time/effort/money to do research for (see "documentary"). And then the problem becomes that either you privilege the political speech of rich individuals over non-rich ones even more than we already do, or you have to allow non-rich individuals to pool resources to speak. The "loophole" is then.. what exactly? What form the pooling takes? Whether the pooling is voluntary? Something else? I see a lot of people who are unhappy with the Citizens United decision, but not many proposals for what the law on this should be apart from "political speech from organizations I disagree with should not be allowed". For example, I see lots of "corporations shouldn't be able to engage in political speech" but very little of "unions shouldn't be able to engage in political speech" from Citizens United opponents. Amusingly, I see a fair amount of "unions shouldn't be able to engage in political speech" from people who support the Citizens United decision. And I have met absolutely no one who opposes the Citizens United decision and also thinks Michael Moore shouldn't be allowed to create movies in election years. Though I expect such people do exist; there just aren't many of them.
- deong 9y ago
  You're 100% right. What I'd say is that we as a society have to make a choice between preserving the full range of protected speech we all enjoy and curtailing the degree to which the democratic process has been corrupted by the unlimited need for private money to run a campaign. I'm not personally convinced I know which of those two options is preferable, but those are the options. I am fairly well convinced that you can't do the latter without the former.
- pikzen 9y ago
  >corporations shouldn't be able to engage in political speech Corporations should be able to engage in political speech, as long it is done through their CEO or anyone that represents them officially, who then would be nothing more than just another citizen who happens to own a company, defending its interests. By all means, have an interesting debate, explain your point of view, reason as to why you'd like X or Y. Money is _not_ speech. By allowing those citizens to contribute financially, in an effectively unlimited way through superPACs and other setups, you are throwing away the very foundation of democracy and equality amongst citizens when it comes to being represented. >unions shouldn't be able to engage in political speech Go ahead, same thing, debate! Make yourselves heard, in the streets or on television. But, once again, money can fuck right off.
  - jimmyk 9y ago
    >you are throwing away the very foundation of democracy and equality amongst citizens when it comes to being represented. There is no such foundation. You're lying to yourself. At the very least, the owners of media outlets have far more influence than other citizens due to their ability to set the conversation. There is literally nothing you can do to achieve your ridiculous ideal of equality, or to even come anywhere close to it. All you can do is change what rich people have to do to get what they want, and maybe make it more expensive. And by the way, making it more expensive just means the richest get even more of a say. >money can fuck right off. So I can't pay someone to build a website that (directly or indirectly) promotes a candidate?
    - 9y ago

pikzen 9y ago

>Can I create a video and post it on my private youtube channel, as a private individual? Yes. >Can I spend $10 million creating the youtube video, if I have that much money as a private individual? Yes. However, if it turns out that those ten million were gathered from other friends, explicitly in the goal to make this video without disclosing your donors or ignoring the caps, you should be fined and be made unelectable for multiple years. >Can I organize a group of 10 friends to each spend $1 million on the youtube video? Not if that video is part of your campaign, because then the amount each person can donate is capped. >Can I organize 1 million people to spend $10 each on said video? Yes. The only real problem in those four is the third. Because it is infinitely easier to organize only ten friends to donate one million to your campaign than to organize one million people, especially if you're already in the category of people that can afford to blow ten millions like that. As a bonus, at least having one million people donating to you demonstrates that you actually have people following you.

bzbarsky 9y ago
This was apparently not clear: in all those questions the "I" posting the video is not the person running. That's the context of the Citizens United decision.
- pikzen 9y ago
  Then you are more than welcome to blow as much money as you'd like on your favourite candidate! And since it's on Youtube, noone is "forced" to watch your video, they can always switch to something else. However, TV and cable channels (as well as press) should have strict equality rules when it comes to candidates for a given period until the elections. What good will your ten million dollars video do on CNN when they are legally obligated to give every candidate the same amount of air time? But of course, you could skirt around it, and make your video subtly hint about said candidate, never mentioning him. But if countries with civil law can manage to make that work when it comes to respecting the spirit of the law, I have no doubt a country with common law will have no issues realizing that this is quite obviously violating the spirit of the law.