4 ms·

How do you handle the us government censoring newspapers, Wikipedia, etcetc if this is your demand?

by Misdicorl 7y ago

rootusrootus 7y ago
...
- strictnein 7y ago
  Newspapers do not have a specific call-out. The printing press does, which was simply the most advanced method of spreading your speech at the time. The founders wanted the ability to print what they wanted and, just as importantly, not be forced by the government to print things they didn't want to.
- Misdicorl 7y ago
  > Wikipedia can fall back on the individual editors' rights Can it? Then why couldn't any other company similarly fall back on to the rights of their employees. e.g. whoever is compiling the data being sold in the telecom case.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    Employees would be seen as acting on behalf of the corporate entity. So really they are proxy and/or talking for the corporate entity. Not themselves. Most random employees have no usefully unrestricted free speech when their contract often deliberately punishes them if they say the wrong word. Those people working for companies shut up about their work unless they are willing to go whistleblower / they reveal a workplace safety issue / have legal advice etc.
mannykannot 7y ago
In the US, freedom of the press is explicily stated in the 1st. amendment to the constitution. It does not depend on any legal theory of publishing corporations being people.
- Misdicorl 7y ago
  So what is your litmus test for distinguishing between the New York Time's API for accessing their data and an ISPs API for accessing their data?
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    Is your question intended to establish or imply that there is an error of fact in my previous post? It is not clear to me that there is any necessary relationship between the two.
    - Misdicorl 7y ago
      The question is why the ISPs can't claim the same protections as The New York Times in selling this data. IOTW: is this a 'you know it when you see it' type of situation like pornography, or is there a real differentiator?
      - mannykannot 7y ago
        That is a reasonable question in its own right, but it is not clear to me how the answer to the question would differ if the freedom of the press were based on the principle of corporations having (some of) the rights of individuals, rather than it being expressly, if vaguely, stated in the 1st. amendment. Ultimately, I think you will find that a great deal of law (and, much more broadly, ethics) comes down to 'I know it when I see it' (or, perhaps, 'we (the people) agree that we know it when we see it'.) This can be a difficult thing for people with a somewhat rigidly rational approach to life to accept.
        Misdicorl 7y ago
        The original question is if you curtail the ISPs rights here, under what legal framework are you not curtailing the rights of NYT/Wikipedia/etc. Pornography in law is famous because it is one of the few 'I know it when I see it' situations. While certainly the law lacks the rigor we enjoy in technical fields, it is a rare circumstance where that is the legal basis of an opinion.
rs23296008n1 7y ago
I'm feeling verbose today. So. Demand is far too overstating it. And I'm not proposing or demanding it become law. There's a bunch of side-effects we might not like. But let's go with it anyway: Freedom of speech is different from freedom of the press. But both are linked because the amendment was written to allow for people to record their grievances to government via a free press. This is why free press was linked - people wanted their speech recorded in print and it was seen that government might legislate this out of existence or otherwise restrict it. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Notice that people can obviously operate a press without congress outlawing it. Care to show me where a corporation gets free speech from? Not from that amendment. It comes from law around granting corporations the status of "legal person". This was necessary to allow a group of people to operate a business and have the business be liable, make contracts etc instead of the group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person If you want to imply corporations have freedom of the press and therefore freedom of speech thats the only angle you have if you reject "legal person". Freedom of press is the ability to print. My fictional judge would accept that printed page as "from the corporate entity". But its still not speech: That judge would then ask the corporate entity to speak it. As for a corporation actually being able to speak or print. The entity can own a printer. So it can "speak" via the press. But it can't actually talk without a proxy. No actual mouth nor was it born with one nor would it could presumably be seen to even possibly have been born with one. This covers the case where some clever lawyer might bring up exceptions for birth deformity as a reason for granting something without speech actual free speech. But in reality its all moot: "legal person" is already a thing. And it overrides all of this. Until it doesn't I guess but that is unlikely. The more astute would just say that any of these conditions would have to be put into law and the amendment prevents that. So, its still moot. Unless you determine that legal entities aren't actually people but only narrowly defined as people for particular reasons.
- Misdicorl 7y ago
  I'm ignoring the legalese to make a distinction between a human and non-human person. Corporations were granted free speech in a couple famous supreme court cases (NYT v. Sullivan, NYT vs. U.S.) and is not tied to the more recent non-human 'person' law. The relevant question in my mind is how to protect Wikipedia and the New York Times and The Red Cross and ... from censorship by the government. There are very many organizations which speak in ways that the government would prefer they wouldn't- not all of them are traditional press, but many are. Your proposal would allow the government to censor them all as they no longer have that protected right.

How do you handle the us government censoring newspapers, Wikipedia, etcetc if this is your demand?

rootusrootus 7y ago

...

strictnein 7y ago
Newspapers do not have a specific call-out. The printing press does, which was simply the most advanced method of spreading your speech at the time. The founders wanted the ability to print what they wanted and, just as importantly, not be forced by the government to print things they didn't want to.
Misdicorl 7y ago
> Wikipedia can fall back on the individual editors' rights Can it? Then why couldn't any other company similarly fall back on to the rights of their employees. e.g. whoever is compiling the data being sold in the telecom case.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  Employees would be seen as acting on behalf of the corporate entity. So really they are proxy and/or talking for the corporate entity. Not themselves. Most random employees have no usefully unrestricted free speech when their contract often deliberately punishes them if they say the wrong word. Those people working for companies shut up about their work unless they are willing to go whistleblower / they reveal a workplace safety issue / have legal advice etc.

mannykannot 7y ago

In the US, freedom of the press is explicily stated in the 1st. amendment to the constitution. It does not depend on any legal theory of publishing corporations being people.

Misdicorl 7y ago
So what is your litmus test for distinguishing between the New York Time's API for accessing their data and an ISPs API for accessing their data?
- mannykannot 7y ago
  Is your question intended to establish or imply that there is an error of fact in my previous post? It is not clear to me that there is any necessary relationship between the two.
  - Misdicorl 7y ago
    The question is why the ISPs can't claim the same protections as The New York Times in selling this data. IOTW: is this a 'you know it when you see it' type of situation like pornography, or is there a real differentiator?
    - mannykannot 7y ago
      That is a reasonable question in its own right, but it is not clear to me how the answer to the question would differ if the freedom of the press were based on the principle of corporations having (some of) the rights of individuals, rather than it being expressly, if vaguely, stated in the 1st. amendment. Ultimately, I think you will find that a great deal of law (and, much more broadly, ethics) comes down to 'I know it when I see it' (or, perhaps, 'we (the people) agree that we know it when we see it'.) This can be a difficult thing for people with a somewhat rigidly rational approach to life to accept.
      - Misdicorl 7y ago
        The original question is if you curtail the ISPs rights here, under what legal framework are you not curtailing the rights of NYT/Wikipedia/etc. Pornography in law is famous because it is one of the few 'I know it when I see it' situations. While certainly the law lacks the rigor we enjoy in technical fields, it is a rare circumstance where that is the legal basis of an opinion.

rs23296008n1 7y ago

I'm feeling verbose today. So. Demand is far too overstating it. And I'm not proposing or demanding it become law. There's a bunch of side-effects we might not like. But let's go with it anyway: Freedom of speech is different from freedom of the press. But both are linked because the amendment was written to allow for people to record their grievances to government via a free press. This is why free press was linked - people wanted their speech recorded in print and it was seen that government might legislate this out of existence or otherwise restrict it. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Notice that people can obviously operate a press without congress outlawing it. Care to show me where a corporation gets free speech from? Not from that amendment. It comes from law around granting corporations the status of "legal person". This was necessary to allow a group of people to operate a business and have the business be liable, make contracts etc instead of the group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person If you want to imply corporations have freedom of the press and therefore freedom of speech thats the only angle you have if you reject "legal person". Freedom of press is the ability to print. My fictional judge would accept that printed page as "from the corporate entity". But its still not speech: That judge would then ask the corporate entity to speak it. As for a corporation actually being able to speak or print. The entity can own a printer. So it can "speak" via the press. But it can't actually talk without a proxy. No actual mouth nor was it born with one nor would it could presumably be seen to even possibly have been born with one. This covers the case where some clever lawyer might bring up exceptions for birth deformity as a reason for granting something without speech actual free speech. But in reality its all moot: "legal person" is already a thing. And it overrides all of this. Until it doesn't I guess but that is unlikely. The more astute would just say that any of these conditions would have to be put into law and the amendment prevents that. So, its still moot. Unless you determine that legal entities aren't actually people but only narrowly defined as people for particular reasons.

Misdicorl 7y ago
I'm ignoring the legalese to make a distinction between a human and non-human person. Corporations were granted free speech in a couple famous supreme court cases (NYT v. Sullivan, NYT vs. U.S.) and is not tied to the more recent non-human 'person' law. The relevant question in my mind is how to protect Wikipedia and the New York Times and The Red Cross and ... from censorship by the government. There are very many organizations which speak in ways that the government would prefer they wouldn't- not all of them are traditional press, but many are. Your proposal would allow the government to censor them all as they no longer have that protected right.