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by Jensson 19 days ago
So that means there it offers zero protection against private corporations? It seems like that is a bad idea, isn't it better to say people have rights that nobody is allowed to violate instead? Like freedom of speech doesn't matter much if private corporations are allowed to silence you.
2 comments
solidsnack9000 18 days ago
There are plenty of protections against private entities in the US legal system -- other people, corporations and organizations. Those were not the issues the founders were trying to address, though -- the common law offered many such protections.
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ToValueFunfetti 18 days ago
Oh, believe me, I've been on the losing side of that issue with you for ages. I absolutely agree it is unethical for anybody to violate anybody's free speech, etc, and that that multiplies with corporate power.

But that means I'm familiar with the counterpoints. A government has the power to use violence: to operate a military that can kill non-citizens and a police force that can put citizens in prison. It's a lot more important to put a check on this than on a corp, even though quantity has a quality of its own. One thing to suppress dissidents by saying they can't use your website; another to put them in the gulags.

And then the other big issue is that corporations are just a bunch of people shaking hands. You have the right to free press, so you can write a newspaper that says what you like. You can sell that paper and you can publish people's op-eds if they give you the copyright permissions. You can refuse to publish the ones you disagree with. You can make agreements with the printing company to scale up and with other authors to contribute as you become popular, and, while this shifts the practical considerations, no amount of these agreements changes your principle right to free press.

For these reasons, it's best not to include this in your constitution. I have no idea what to do instead apart from shaming and boycotting unethical companies, which of course doesn't work when most people don't care an iota about the principle of free speech. Look at Athenian democracy and sigh?

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