[Karunamon]

if someone is broadcasting to 1 million people, their message should adhere to some standards.

I don't agree with that statement at any level! Those 1 million people have absolute freedom to listen or to not listen. This puts you in the position of telling people they can't hear something they want to hear.

As a bonus, those standards you mention can easily become a cudgel against people the government wants to implicitly or explicitly silence.

[EGreg]

No, they have freedom to listen or not, but is it not automatically clear that the broadcaster should have that freedom.

The government won't be able to silence a true message that doesn't "hijack mass media" and spreads by 1-to-1000 at a time.

[teekert]

You are saying freedom of speech is a bad thing. You are endorsing state censorship.

Do you realize that at one point you yourself could be in a position where you disagree with your government and you want to speak up only to find your message being silenced constantly?

Either all people are equal or they are not, some people can not be more equal than others.

[EGreg]

Yes I realize that. If I disagree with my government and my message cannot spread by any method other than hijacking mass media, then perhaps most people don't feel as I do. And that is super significant. Everyone is equal, and giving random people the chance to control a huge megaphone makes you LESS equal, not more. The one who gets their megaphone spreads their message more. And with great power comes great responsibility. Think of Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others who control a platform. Think of FOX and others. Can they do absolutely anything they want?

When you let mass media be used by ISIS and others in the name of free speech, you're giving them a free way to do super-untargeted advertising to their new recruits.

[kawakiole]

> giving random people the chance to control a huge megaphone makes you LESS equal, not more

People can choose what to hear. It's not random, It's the complete opposite of random.

[EGreg]

When it comes to mass media, they can choose the channel that they listen to from a limited number of platforms. On this channel, they hear something because a few elites made a decision to broadcast it. For example, how many Messengers are there? Apple, FOX, Telegram have a responsibility because of their reach.

Anyway you haven't addressed the downsides I posted. All you do is ignore them in favor of the upsides. I could be an anarcho capitalist and insist on the unlimited right to property, also. Saying it's a moral right and ignoring any downsides.

[Karunamon]

Roughly 3/4 of Americans have access to the internet[1] (and more than half of them are over 65) as of two years ago, which blows the "limited number of platforms" argument away quite handily. The number of individual outlets you can get your news from is functionally unlimited.

The mass media has a responsibility all right, but not the one you think they do.

[1]: https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/2013computeruse.pdf