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I see a pretty obvious argument that this would be a content neutral regulation that serves the public good.

• sokoloff 5y ago
  Yes, I see that argument as well. 1A doesn’t say “Congress may pass laws abridging the freedom of the press only when they serve the public good” but has rather stricter/broader prohibitions.
  • shkkmo 5y ago
    If you study the history of US case law you will see "content neutral" [0] regulation that "serves a public good" is often used as part of the standard to decide when the US government is allowed to restrict speech. [0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/937/content-neutral https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/937/content-neutral The "content neutral" part is really important because it is what allows a huge range of government regulations that ideally are equally applied to everyone regardless of how popular a message is. The "public good" part is a portion of showing that a speech limiting regulation is narrowly tailored enough to achieve that public good without unnecessarily hampering speech. Regardless of what you think about the validity of these court decisions, there is reasonable precedent to think that such a law would survive a 1A challenge.
    • sokoloff 5y ago
      Very interesting and relevant citation. Thanks! Those cases do seem slightly different in character from “if you, as a news organization, literally say X, you are compelled to also say Y; violations are a crime rather than a civil violation”, but I agree it’s not open and shut.