[ethbr1]

That's why they're intrinsically linked.

If you mandate that non-human entities have an 1st amendment right, you cannot have meaningful campaign finance limits.

Ergo, because it's worth having campaign finance limits, in the interest of allowing the best candidate / idea to win, I think it's worth threshing through stripping 1st amendment rights from non-human entities.

Regarding how one weighs what sort of speech would then be allowed and disallowed is a difficult problem, but the above needs to happen before it can even be started on.

Now, we have a frankensystem where reality (unlimited finance) and policy (limited finance) differ, which is never a healthy state.

[whimsicalism]

my point is that stripping non-human entities of 1st amendment is effectively repealing the 1st amendment in the US, if it allows the government to regulate newspapers/printmakers/movies based on political content. so your point is essentially that campaign finance trumps 1A, which might be true but i am not so sure

[ethbr1]

> stripping non-human entities of 1st amendment is effectively repealing the 1st amendment in the US

Human individuals would still have a right to speak whatever they feel.

And arguably, I'd extend that onto platforms above a certain size that can verify human identity (ideally anonymized after verification).

IMHO, newspapers/printmakers/movies do need to be regulated.

They deserve rights, but those rights should look very different than individual 1st amendment right.

Which seems reasonable -- nobody would ever confuse Alphabet-the-company with me-the-individual-person in terms of capability and capital.

[nradov]

What a terrible idea. Giving government the power to regulate newspapers/printmakers/movies can't possibly produce better outcomes than what we have now. Preserving maximum freedom of expression is far more important than any election result.

[ethbr1]

> Preserving maximum freedom of expression is far more important than any election result.

I guess that's where we disagree.

To me, democracy starts from elections with equality of opportunity.

Anything shy of that corrupts the very foundations, and we've been trending shyer for a long time.

Is it any surprise we get increasingly concentrated wealth (world wars aside) with a set of policies that allow spending unlimited money to buy votes?

[doron]

It's an interesting point. Whether non-human entities are entitled to 1st amendment rights. Since they have the potential longevity that far exceeds humans, and also can't be punished in same manner for potential wrongdoing (i.e. send an entire company or lobby) to prison.