[agar]

This is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.

When you consider some of the recent decisions about what constitutes "speech," it raises the important question of whether a private company influencing its customers' voting preferences would actually be protected.

How much different is it for a company to use its speech to influence a politician directly (donations, lobbying, PACs, etc.) vs. stating its political opinions on its own private "property" potentially to influence politics indirectly?

In physical space, is it legal to:

* Have a sign promoting a social position in the window of your private store? ("Say no to drugs!") * Have a sign promoting a political position? ("Say no to the Iraq war!") * Have a sign promoting a candidate? ("I like Ike!") * Tell customers who to vote for? ("Have a nice day, vote for JFK!") * Tell only customers that "look a certain way" who to vote for? ("As someone in a wheelchair, you should vote for FDR!")

Now convert all this to the online world with banner ads, user targeting, and personalization. Isn't it just free speech at scale?

[em-bee]

it's the scale that may tip the balance from voicing your opinion to mass-manipulation. i am not saying that online speech is mass-manipulation, but it has the potential to be, whereas the other has not. and because of this potential they need to be considered separately.

fwiw, an online "go vote" is not manipulation if it's not targeted even if the audience is an uneven demographic, but "i like ike" is. and while google search may have a younger demographic, they certainly don't intentionally limit that, since they want everyone to use google search.