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So you are okay with, say, the EFF and ACLU not having any freedom of speech? (Not that these organizations engage in much advertising, but they do some, and s
by comex 11y ago
So you are okay with, say, the EFF and ACLU not having any freedom of speech? (Not that these organizations engage in much advertising, but they do some, and stripping freedom of speech would apply to content posted on their own websites etc. as well as to advertising.)
Or, for that matter, newspapers. Sure, you could make exceptions for the press, but then you have to define it; in general this is very dangerous stuff.
- Adlai 11y agoWouldn't the individuals behind organizations such as the EFF and ACLU gladly stand behind their message?
- sirsar 11y agoMany would, but I bet fewer would pay the advertising costs out of their own pockets. And any loophole you provide civil liberties organizations (pay them a salary to buy ads) will just as soon be taken advantage of by the corporations we all despise.
- harshreality 11y agoNeither of them are really advertising products or services, so any regulation (under a "commercial speech needs regulation" paradigm) that would apply to them (or other NGOs we might hold near and dear) would be light or non-existent. There's a separate argument to be made about whether political speech should be free (mostly unregulated) for corporations... Japan as I understand it is a fairly good example of heavily regulated political speech. As far as I can tell, politics in the modern world is dysfunctional regardless of how light the restrictions on political speech and political organizations' funding and activities. Political speech has many of the same problematic aspects of commercial advertisements, so I think there's room for argument that Citizens United and other precedent on the issue are a disaster, regardless of how much it might help political organizations we like.