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Well, there is a different way of looking at it. As real flesh and bones individuals, the first amendment protections should apply. For companies (aka: fictit

Well, there is a different way of looking at it. As real flesh and bones individuals, the first amendment protections should apply. For companies (aka: fictitious entities), are granted corporate charters by the government. They are extensions of the government allowing a bubble of state/federal government of what we call a company. Freedom of speech makes sense when its my body - but who's body does the speech come out of with a corporation? In that light, companies should have a requirement to uphold the bill of rights. They are created legal entities, not at all like a person. ------------------------ The glaring problem with not applying 1FA to a company means the mega-companies that wish to deplatform you leads you to no recourse. Do you have a right to use a monopolistic service? The issue with that course of actions is that the rules to the megacorps (FAANG) also apply to the small companies with 1 or more. More regulation does tend to kill tiny companies.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
> Freedom of speech makes sense when its my body - but who's body does the speech come out of with a corporation? PragerU is a corporation as well, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. But this decision is absolutely consistent with applying the First Amendment to corporations. Compulsory speech is not free speech. Why should YouTube be forced to spend their time and money to disseminate PragerU's content on their platform — i.e. to "speak" against their will?
- _-david-_ 7y ago
  If a video on YouTube constitutes YouTube's speech then does that mean if somebody posts a video containing something illegal YouTube should be held responsible?
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    It's not the video that YouTube creates; it's the metadata of recommendations, classification, and advertising association. PragerU attempted to argue YouTube infringed PragerU's freedom by arranging that metadata in a way PragerU didn't like.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    If I lend you my megaphone, should I be held responsible if you use it to say something illegal?
tombert 7y ago
Wait, do you really believe what you're saying? You realize that YouTube has to appeal to advertisers to make money, and advertisers don't typically like sharing platforms with every group. If you crawl through new uploads, you'll find literal neo-Nazi propaganda without even working that hard. There's nothing illegal about being a Nazi (at least in the US), but advertisers typically don't want to be on the same platform as Nazis (for good reason). Are you claiming that advertisers should be forced to advertise on platforms that they don't agree with? NOTE: I'm not claiming that PragerU is outright Nazi propaganda. I think they're a terrible organization and their videos are idiotic, but I haven't seen outright Nazi promotion on their stuff (though admittedly I haven't watched everything by them).
Matticus_Rex 7y ago
As an individual, I don't have to let PragerU say whatever they want on my property. If I and some other people who also individually have that right pool resources and create a company, why should that company then lack the right to govern who can use our property? Why should we lose our freedom of association (you know, something actually protected under 1A)?
xenadu02 7y ago
The natural outcome of this line of thought is complete destruction of all online platforms. Without moderation things quickly become a cesspool. Whether spam, or child porn, or scams, or just extremely toxic behavior that scares off 99% of users the end result is the same. Moderation of content - some form of censoring - is a feature, not a bug. Nothing is stopping you from providing your own video platform that doesn't censor content (or at least doesn't censor any legal content). The free market, however, is unlikely to support you in that effort. Advertisers have always refused to sponsor content they find objectionable, and most people won't pay, so that leaves you with rather thin margins for such a service.
- thu2111 7y ago
  Nothing is stopping you from providing your own video platform that doesn't censor content I agree this is true in theory, with the internet as it is today. PragerU can and should host their own videos if Google doesn't want to (edit: though in this case the problem is not related to hosting but advertising, it seems?). Anyway, we can and should criticise Google for their partisan stances and they shouldn't be treated with much sympathy if a conservative government retaliates in some way either, but that's by the by. The problem is that this sort of thing doesn't have any limits. People were making the exact same argument when Google seized the domain of a source of unpopular speech such that the owners were not only unable to use Google's services, but in fact, were unable to host themselves too. It was basically a DoS attack by a corporation on that site. The internet is run entirely by private companies. What happens to your argument when someone does in fact stop PragerU from providing their own video platform that doesn't censor content? For instance because an angry mob tries to shut down your ISP, or a DNS provider steals your domain, or a DDoS protection firm decides not to protect you anymore and then lets an anonymous mob take your servers offline? Nobody at any point has violated the constitution, but the outcome is identical. Digital technology requires private sector collaboration. If an increasingly partisan set of tech firms systematically try to wipe conservative thought out - which is what they are doing - despite that this political philosophy represents about half the voting population, then they are going to end up regulated so strictly it'll make banks look like free-wheeling anarchists in comparison. This will happen slowly because conservatives don't want to do that, but it will happen, especially as actual shrink-the-state conservatives don't tend to get into leadership positions in the west. Ultimately the right to criticise the government is a right to criticise those who have power. The arguments for it don't change if the government outsources suppression of speech to contractors, and don't change if a bunch of political allies manage to take control of organisations required to engage in speech. It's the right itself that matters.
tssva 7y ago
The speech comes out of the bodies of the ownership of the company. Companies are just groups of people acting together for financial gain. Why should an individual give up constitutional rights or have to become an agent of the government just because they are acting in coordination with others rather than alone?
quanticle 7y ago
>Freedom of speech makes sense when its my body - but who's body does the speech come out of with a corporation? It comes from the body of everyone who holds shares in the corporation. Banning free speech from corporations would increase the influence of billionaires, not lessen it, by making it impossible for those who don't have the means individually of purchasing distribution from banding together and purchasing distribution as a collective entity. Concrete example: let's say there's an evil billionaire, Lex Luthor, who's flooding the airwaves with propaganda for policies that you think are awful and evil. In a world where corporate speech was prohibited or restricted, you and your neighbors would have much less power to oppose Mr. Luthor, because you would be unable to band together and form a corporate entity (e.g. "Concerned Citizens Against Kryptonite Pollution") to oppose Mr. Luthor's advertising that kryptonite is a perfectly safe chemical which has no negative health effects.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  It cuts both ways. There are many more wealthy corporations than individuals.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Indeed! We, as many societies, will have to deal with the other large question: what do we do with monopolistic mega-companies? The Youtube question has to primarily do with that they're the primary go-to for videos online that aren't related to pornography. There is Vimeo and other tiny video sites, but none of them amount to the connected monetization platforms, like the way Google does with YT. Traditional monopolies don't really come into place, because as the canard here on HN is, "You can just make your own video site." In reality, that ignores all the interconnection and entrenchment. But Google doing X doesn't mean you can't. Are they a monopoly? (I believe they are.) And if so, what restrictions should they have in place to be fair? (As and aside: I am arguing this in good faith. I've seen and had friends deplatformed for infosec, hacking, and gun repair videos on YT. I've also seen similar on FB and Twitter as well, with no recourse. And on FB and Twitter both, my elected politicians show up and talk with the populace. But alas, my first comment sits at -4, for what I guess is as a 'disagree button'. )
objectivetruth 7y ago
Corporations are not "extensions of the government allowing a bubble of state/federal government." The word "corporation" derives from the same Latin word as "body" -- a corporation, in the eyes of the government, IS a legal person. In other words, the corporation itself is the "body [where] the speech comes out [of]."

jakelazaroff 7y ago

> Freedom of speech makes sense when its my body - but who's body does the speech come out of with a corporation? PragerU is a corporation as well, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. But this decision is absolutely consistent with applying the First Amendment to corporations. Compulsory speech is not free speech. Why should YouTube be forced to spend their time and money to disseminate PragerU's content on their platform — i.e. to "speak" against their will?

_-david-_ 7y ago
If a video on YouTube constitutes YouTube's speech then does that mean if somebody posts a video containing something illegal YouTube should be held responsible?
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  It's not the video that YouTube creates; it's the metadata of recommendations, classification, and advertising association. PragerU attempted to argue YouTube infringed PragerU's freedom by arranging that metadata in a way PragerU didn't like.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  If I lend you my megaphone, should I be held responsible if you use it to say something illegal?

tombert 7y ago

Wait, do you really believe what you're saying? You realize that YouTube has to appeal to advertisers to make money, and advertisers don't typically like sharing platforms with every group. If you crawl through new uploads, you'll find literal neo-Nazi propaganda without even working that hard. There's nothing illegal about being a Nazi (at least in the US), but advertisers typically don't want to be on the same platform as Nazis (for good reason). Are you claiming that advertisers should be forced to advertise on platforms that they don't agree with? NOTE: I'm not claiming that PragerU is outright Nazi propaganda. I think they're a terrible organization and their videos are idiotic, but I haven't seen outright Nazi promotion on their stuff (though admittedly I haven't watched everything by them).

Matticus_Rex 7y ago

As an individual, I don't have to let PragerU say whatever they want on my property. If I and some other people who also individually have that right pool resources and create a company, why should that company then lack the right to govern who can use our property? Why should we lose our freedom of association (you know, something actually protected under 1A)?

xenadu02 7y ago

The natural outcome of this line of thought is complete destruction of all online platforms. Without moderation things quickly become a cesspool. Whether spam, or child porn, or scams, or just extremely toxic behavior that scares off 99% of users the end result is the same. Moderation of content - some form of censoring - is a feature, not a bug. Nothing is stopping you from providing your own video platform that doesn't censor content (or at least doesn't censor any legal content). The free market, however, is unlikely to support you in that effort. Advertisers have always refused to sponsor content they find objectionable, and most people won't pay, so that leaves you with rather thin margins for such a service.

thu2111 7y ago
Nothing is stopping you from providing your own video platform that doesn't censor content I agree this is true in theory, with the internet as it is today. PragerU can and should host their own videos if Google doesn't want to (edit: though in this case the problem is not related to hosting but advertising, it seems?). Anyway, we can and should criticise Google for their partisan stances and they shouldn't be treated with much sympathy if a conservative government retaliates in some way either, but that's by the by. The problem is that this sort of thing doesn't have any limits. People were making the exact same argument when Google seized the domain of a source of unpopular speech such that the owners were not only unable to use Google's services, but in fact, were unable to host themselves too. It was basically a DoS attack by a corporation on that site. The internet is run entirely by private companies. What happens to your argument when someone does in fact stop PragerU from providing their own video platform that doesn't censor content? For instance because an angry mob tries to shut down your ISP, or a DNS provider steals your domain, or a DDoS protection firm decides not to protect you anymore and then lets an anonymous mob take your servers offline? Nobody at any point has violated the constitution, but the outcome is identical. Digital technology requires private sector collaboration. If an increasingly partisan set of tech firms systematically try to wipe conservative thought out - which is what they are doing - despite that this political philosophy represents about half the voting population, then they are going to end up regulated so strictly it'll make banks look like free-wheeling anarchists in comparison. This will happen slowly because conservatives don't want to do that, but it will happen, especially as actual shrink-the-state conservatives don't tend to get into leadership positions in the west. Ultimately the right to criticise the government is a right to criticise those who have power. The arguments for it don't change if the government outsources suppression of speech to contractors, and don't change if a bunch of political allies manage to take control of organisations required to engage in speech. It's the right itself that matters.

tssva 7y ago

The speech comes out of the bodies of the ownership of the company. Companies are just groups of people acting together for financial gain. Why should an individual give up constitutional rights or have to become an agent of the government just because they are acting in coordination with others rather than alone?

quanticle 7y ago

>Freedom of speech makes sense when its my body - but who's body does the speech come out of with a corporation? It comes from the body of everyone who holds shares in the corporation. Banning free speech from corporations would increase the influence of billionaires, not lessen it, by making it impossible for those who don't have the means individually of purchasing distribution from banding together and purchasing distribution as a collective entity. Concrete example: let's say there's an evil billionaire, Lex Luthor, who's flooding the airwaves with propaganda for policies that you think are awful and evil. In a world where corporate speech was prohibited or restricted, you and your neighbors would have much less power to oppose Mr. Luthor, because you would be unable to band together and form a corporate entity (e.g. "Concerned Citizens Against Kryptonite Pollution") to oppose Mr. Luthor's advertising that kryptonite is a perfectly safe chemical which has no negative health effects.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
It cuts both ways. There are many more wealthy corporations than individuals.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Indeed! We, as many societies, will have to deal with the other large question: what do we do with monopolistic mega-companies? The Youtube question has to primarily do with that they're the primary go-to for videos online that aren't related to pornography. There is Vimeo and other tiny video sites, but none of them amount to the connected monetization platforms, like the way Google does with YT. Traditional monopolies don't really come into place, because as the canard here on HN is, "You can just make your own video site." In reality, that ignores all the interconnection and entrenchment. But Google doing X doesn't mean you can't. Are they a monopoly? (I believe they are.) And if so, what restrictions should they have in place to be fair? (As and aside: I am arguing this in good faith. I've seen and had friends deplatformed for infosec, hacking, and gun repair videos on YT. I've also seen similar on FB and Twitter as well, with no recourse. And on FB and Twitter both, my elected politicians show up and talk with the populace. But alas, my first comment sits at -4, for what I guess is as a 'disagree button'. )

objectivetruth 7y ago

Corporations are not "extensions of the government allowing a bubble of state/federal government." The word "corporation" derives from the same Latin word as "body" -- a corporation, in the eyes of the government, IS a legal person. In other words, the corporation itself is the "body [where] the speech comes out [of]."