Corporate Speech Amendment - squaring rights of corporations with rights of natural persons?

[tonni]

This would literally make it illegal for Sherdog to dump White Supremacist threads.

 

[JamesRussler]

I think you're on to something with the market comparison moreso than with the amendment. I just don't think that you could make a format as large as youtube have the first amendment as its terms and services agreement without some sort of a draconian policy (like being unable to change their declaration whenever they feel like it). However, it's not so much that these platforms have the ability to shut people down willy nilly that's problematic, it's the fact that they or their parent companies control the market.

“The market” example I provided actually involves direct government intervention. Market forces, for whatever reason, are apparently unable to prevent tech firms from abusing their power differential to fuck consumers, so that problem falls to the government. Perhaps eliminating censorship can be accomplished via statute rather than Constitutional Amendment, but the end result is the same: the government steps in to correct ills which the market is unwilling or unable to remedy on its own. Once we do that, we can sit back and let the market run its course.

As for administrability, I know for a fact that First Amendment speech standards are easier to administer than any TOS currently on the books. In fact, it would require companies to do practically nothing except delete threats and ignore pressure to censor. Everyone in Big Tech knows this; many would welcome the shift because it’s easier than conforming to the wayward whims of SJW outrage politics. YouTube would be able lay off (or perhaps reassign) almost its entire grievance department.

I'm a leftist who actually thinks this issue can be solved by the free market, it's just that there might not be a market as such, currently. The SEC regulations are particularly on the nose: the SEC exists so that the stock market functions. Without it there'd be too many Bernie Madoffs and Enrons to make it worth investing. Which would be bad. Google and Apple being the market for competing apps is a bit like Amazon owning the NYSE. That would be bad.

Sounds like we pretty much agree.

Greenwald was making a point like this on the intercept. That it's the vertical integration of these platforms that is potentially problematic, not really their size. I really can't be persuaded to give a shit how big youtube is, and how capriciously they ban people from their services: provided you can just go ahead and download a competitor's app.

That’s a good point. Vertical alignment is important, but size matters too