[paulgb]

Just incorporate political messages into your spam.

(I kid, but I think it gets at the biggest flaw in reasoning of people who think there is an objective distinction between political speech and spam.)

[pnw_hazor]

Courts are well practiced at sorting these kinds of things out. They would review the content, presentation, targeting, etc. of the emails to determine if it is commercial speech or political speech.

[jakelazaroff]

This is a nightmare scenario. Take down a platform by flooding it with ambiguously political spam and then bring lawsuits until a judge rules censorship.

Color me unsurprised that the end game of the nominally pro–free speech crowd is letting the government determine what legal speech should be censored.

[paulgb]

The two problems with this approach:

1. Even if the courts always get it right, small sites are not going to want to want to hire a lawyer and go to court to defend someone else's speech. They will instead err on the side of caution (as many do now for DMCA violations), causing a chilling effect on speech.

2. In a system where whether a platform is liable for its content is ultimately decided by courts we cede a lot of power over speech to the government.

I really don't think the courts are the path we want to take.

[verroq]

The government is forced to honour the Constitution unlike private corporations.

As courts set precedents, the process will become more streamlined. Ultimately becoming codified into law by congress.