[rs23296008n1]

Sure. Just get the corporate entity to say a single word. No representatives. No notes. No proxies. No robots. No automated voices. The actual corporate legal entity. Not even the CEO. No clever stand-ins with same name.

Just one mouthed, audible word to confirm the entity can qualify for speech. Then we can consider "free speech" for that entity.

I can only dream this would hold up even as I know there are likely dozens of loopholes to render it irrelevant. Not to mention specific exceptions and allowances already in law.

[Misdicorl]

How do you handle the us government censoring newspapers, Wikipedia, etcetc if this is your demand?

[mannykannot]

In the US, freedom of the press is explicily stated in the 1st. amendment to the constitution. It does not depend on any legal theory of publishing corporations being people.

[Misdicorl]

So what is your litmus test for distinguishing between the New York Time's API for accessing their data and an ISPs API for accessing their data?

[mannykannot]

Is your question intended to establish or imply that there is an error of fact in my previous post? It is not clear to me that there is any necessary relationship between the two.

[Misdicorl]

The question is why the ISPs can't claim the same protections as The New York Times in selling this data. IOTW: is this a 'you know it when you see it' type of situation like pornography, or is there a real differentiator?

[rs23296008n1]

Privacy is a good one. I'd be fascinated to see how ISPs assert that publishing a news article is the same as selling/publishing all your search history or all your DNS history. And if it is your records why is it most peoples reaction is horror instead of happiness? Its because privacy has value. Which is why ISPs want to sell it.

Privacy isn't dead its just being sold as a commodity now. Without realistic permission and protection.

I'd go even further: the ISPs only have this data as a result of business dealing and such data is not expected to be shared. Sharing of my history is not necessary for providing me with internet. You want to allow accounting firms to share your financial records as well?

They are only doing it because there's profit. Not because its a necessary aspect for providing internet access. Sharing your accounting data is similar. Another example: what if you go for counselling with psychologist etc? Is that protected?

[mannykannot]

That is a reasonable question in its own right, but it is not clear to me how the answer to the question would differ if the freedom of the press were based on the principle of corporations having (some of) the rights of individuals, rather than it being expressly, if vaguely, stated in the 1st. amendment.

Ultimately, I think you will find that a great deal of law (and, much more broadly, ethics) comes down to 'I know it when I see it' (or, perhaps, 'we (the people) agree that we know it when we see it'.) This can be a difficult thing for people with a somewhat rigidly rational approach to life to accept.

[rs23296008n1]

I'm feeling verbose today. So.

Demand is far too overstating it. And I'm not proposing or demanding it become law. There's a bunch of side-effects we might not like.

But let's go with it anyway:

Freedom of speech is different from freedom of the press. But both are linked because the amendment was written to allow for people to record their grievances to government via a free press. This is why free press was linked - people wanted their speech recorded in print and it was seen that government might legislate this out of existence or otherwise restrict it.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Notice that people can obviously operate a press without congress outlawing it.

Care to show me where a corporation gets free speech from? Not from that amendment. It comes from law around granting corporations the status of "legal person". This was necessary to allow a group of people to operate a business and have the business be liable, make contracts etc instead of the group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person

If you want to imply corporations have freedom of the press and therefore freedom of speech thats the only angle you have if you reject "legal person". Freedom of press is the ability to print. My fictional judge would accept that printed page as "from the corporate entity". But its still not speech: That judge would then ask the corporate entity to speak it.

As for a corporation actually being able to speak or print. The entity can own a printer. So it can "speak" via the press. But it can't actually talk without a proxy. No actual mouth nor was it born with one nor would it could presumably be seen to even possibly have been born with one. This covers the case where some clever lawyer might bring up exceptions for birth deformity as a reason for granting something without speech actual free speech.

But in reality its all moot: "legal person" is already a thing. And it overrides all of this. Until it doesn't I guess but that is unlikely.

The more astute would just say that any of these conditions would have to be put into law and the amendment prevents that. So, its still moot. Unless you determine that legal entities aren't actually people but only narrowly defined as people for particular reasons.

[Misdicorl]

I'm ignoring the legalese to make a distinction between a human and non-human person.

Corporations were granted free speech in a couple famous supreme court cases (NYT v. Sullivan, NYT vs. U.S.) and is not tied to the more recent non-human 'person' law.

The relevant question in my mind is how to protect Wikipedia and the New York Times and The Red Cross and ... from censorship by the government. There are very many organizations which speak in ways that the government would prefer they wouldn't- not all of them are traditional press, but many are.

Your proposal would allow the government to censor them all as they no longer have that protected right.

[rs23296008n1]

I would actually argue that wikipedia, newspaper like the Times etc are acting as a press. Therefore covered by the amendment's specific mention thereof. Don't even need to invoke the freedom of speech of those who did the actual writing. You still could however[1].

The ISPs aren't acting as a press, unless they wish to assert that their primary objective is to publish IPs and other metadata. That is fine as well but they should then lose protection as a simple carrier of data. They would also incur liability of what is published. I'm fair sure they wouldn't want that. They would scream "we're not a press we're a carrier!" to escape that liability.

This is similar to the postal service asserting that they are a press and then selling delivery details or even opening your letters and sharing their content. So, what business are they in? Publisher or carrier? I think it matters.

[1] The weaker fallback of a corporation using its employee's freedom of speech asserts that those employees are fully protected from the corporation. I doubt that is ever true. So in a real way the employees don't have free rein over their opinions and speech. Restricted speakers. I'd therefore not be relying on that. I'd want wikipedia etc protected under freedom of press instead.

[Misdicorl]

What about institutions which wish to speak but certainly aren't primarily press? The Red Cross, Unions, Universities, an activist bakery. Their freedom of speech (or press) is protected too. What distinguishes them from the ISPs?

[rootusrootus]

...

[strictnein]

Newspapers do not have a specific call-out. The printing press does, which was simply the most advanced method of spreading your speech at the time.

The founders wanted the ability to print what they wanted and, just as importantly, not be forced by the government to print things they didn't want to.

[Misdicorl]

> Wikipedia can fall back on the individual editors' rights

Can it? Then why couldn't any other company similarly fall back on to the rights of their employees. e.g. whoever is compiling the data being sold in the telecom case.

[rs23296008n1]

Employees would be seen as acting on behalf of the corporate entity. So really they are proxy and/or talking for the corporate entity. Not themselves.

Most random employees have no usefully unrestricted free speech when their contract often deliberately punishes them if they say the wrong word. Those people working for companies shut up about their work unless they are willing to go whistleblower / they reveal a workplace safety issue / have legal advice etc.

[criddell]

What about the flip side of that. If the NYT prints a slanderous story about you, can you sue the deep-pocketed times, or do you have to go after the underpaid reporter?

[ceejayoz]

I don't follow.

I can still sue someone who never speaks.

[criddell]

If they didn't say anything, on what grounds would you sue?

[ceejayoz]

The corporate entity can't speak, but it can defame.

[gumby]

Corporations are simply machines operated by humans much as an automobile, lawnmower, or piano is. None of those items have rights either.

[buckminster]

For better or worse, reams of corporate law exist to make this not true.

Your piano, for example, can't employ me.

[blaser-waffle]

A piano isn't liable when it falls out of a window and crushes you, Loony Toons style.

[muro]

A mute person has the right too :)

[rahuldottech]

A mute person can write. Or sign. A corporate entity doesn't communicate in any way. Because... It obviously cannot.

[dnautics]

Freedom of speech exists so that entities are presumed to be able to say things without interference from the government. An absolutist stance such as yours results in things like governments disincorporating newspapers that publish politically unfavorable content simply because the newspaper is s corporation and it can't itself physically speak (or write something, or publish something) without a human intermediary.

[briandear]

This would apply to political parties as well? Those are corporations as well — spending billions “speaking.”

[mLuby]

I like where your head's at, but guardians speak on behalf of minors, lawyers speak on behalf of clients, and representatives speak on behalf of their electorate (in theory), so executives speaking on behalf of groups of employees isn't much different.

[simiones]

On behalf of groups of investors, perhaps, not employees.