It’s Wrong For Politicians To Announce Plans To Punish Companies For Speech, No Matter Who Does It
from the stop-it dept
I feel like I keep needing to write this, but once again, no matter who does it and no matter which company they’re targeting, it’s wrong for politicians to promise to punish companies for their speech. For some reason, many people’s position on this point changes based on whether or not they like or dislike the politician, and whether or not they like or dislike the company. But it’s wrong.
It’s wrong when Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee go after Major League Baseball for its speech. It’s wrong when Senator Elizabeth Warren threatens Amazon for its speech. It’s wrong when Senator Marsha Blackburn (and a ton of others) threaten Disney for its speech. It’s wrong when White House officials threaten Facebook for its speech. And it’s wrong when Rep. Ken Buck threatens Apple for its speech.
All of this is grandstanding nonsense, but it’s designed to suppress speech. It’s designed to punish companies for speech that these elected officials dislike. And that’s even if the companies have said something stupid or acted in a way that deserves a regulatory response. By positioning any response as retaliation for speech, these politicians are fundamentally going against the 1st Amendment.
Some have argued that these retaliatory threats don’t amount to an actual 1st Amendment violation because a single politician can’t pass legislation by themselves. But you don’t need to pass legislation to violate the 1st Amendment. Indeed, in Bantam Books v. Sullivan the Supreme Court noted that merely informing someone of “objectionable” speech could violate the 1st Amendment.
While not an exact match, in that case book distributors were informed by a Commission of books that the Commission felt were “objectionable”, with the vague threat that if the distribution went ahead, then some sort of legal punishment might follow. The Court not only found that this violated the 1st Amendment, but that in some ways, the mere threat was worse than if an actual censorial regulation had been put in place. Because when it’s just more vague statements there is less definition in how to appeal, and much greater likelihood of simply over-censoring.
Unfortunately, this now seems to have become the norm on both sides of the political aisle. Browbeat companies for their speech, and threaten to pass regulations (even if those regulations might make sense absent the question of retaliation) in response to the speech. This only serves to put pressure on companies to be silent — which appears to be what these politicians want.
And it is that wish for silence, and the implicit threat in response to speech, that is so problematic.
Even in the cases where you might agree with the underlying regulatory proposal, you should be against these threats because they actually make the regulatory proposals that much less likely to be effective, because companies will be able to challenge them in court as violating the 1st Amendment due to the stated threats of these grandstanding politicians.
If you believe that certain regulations are necessary to deal with certain companies, then make that case. But if you claim that companies need to be punished because of their speech or political activity, then you are a part of the problem.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, elizabeth warren, free speech, jawboning, joe biden, ken buck, mike lee, ted cruz, threats
Companies: amazon, apple, disney, facebook, mlb
Comments on “It’s Wrong For Politicians To Announce Plans To Punish Companies For Speech, No Matter Who Does It”
Subject?
And which one are we talking about this time?
Freedom of speech is one thing, but the idea that it gives the right for a corp to Give money as an expression of a Political choice, ISNT speech.
We really need to define the word FREE. Not Free* or any other added character.
How about, no ramifications of Equal exchange? They cant expect you to give Favor in return.
Free speech is Spewing your Idea/concept/blabber around and expecting nothing in return.
Re:
I suspect this is in reference to Florida Governor DeSantis threatening to disband DisneyWorld’s “Reedy Creek Improvement District” (which essentially allows Disney to function as a county government) in response to their opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.
So many of them are all for companies speech rights when its in the form of donations.
It would be nice if there was less grandstanding and more actual problem solving happening.
But it is far easier to just say stupid shit that appeals to the uninformed who think that these suggested actions are perfectly fine… as long as it only applies to the other side.
Something something oath to Constitution & they keep trying to undermine the first amendment.
Not what they want.
Silence isn’t their goal, controversy is their goal. They are making noise to get headlines. If all these companies stopped ‘speaking’ tomorrow, they would not miss a beat in pivoting to something else to complain about.
“It’s Wrong For Politicians To…”
When has that ever stopped them?
There’s a big difference between speech and hate speech. Hate speech should be prosecuted.
Re:
First, hate speech remains protected under the 1st Amendment, so prosecuting it would be unconstitutional. Second, that’s for a good reason, because everywhere there are “hate speech” laws, they tend to be used by the powerful against the most vulnerable, as we’ve described for years: https://www.techdirt.com/2015/10/28/hate-speech-laws-are-just-another-way-governments-to-punish-people-they-dont-like/
Re: Change up
How about ignorant speech.
Or a Flat out Blatant lie.
At least DEMAND proof of a persons comments.
Re:
The problem is that there is no bright line between ‘hate speech’ and ‘speech critical of me’. This allows the wealthy and/or powerful to use the courts as a club to beat at critics.
Sure, you’ll win in court, but that’s cold comfort when you’re spending the rest of your life paying off the legal fees.
Re:
There is no such thing as hate speech.
The notion that some combination of words can of its own accord be hateful is false.
Someone can say something out of hate certainly. But even that does not make the words they speak inherently hateful. It makes their intent hateful.
And even in that context, you should never make hating someone illegal. Banning how people are allowed to feel toward others is a juvenile attempt to make something you don’t like “go away”. It will only give those expressing those feelings legitimacy to feel that way and make the whole situation worse.
Re: Hate Speech
The 1st Amendment has no ‘hate speech’ exception. Indeed, the Court has ruled over and over that hate speech is protected speech under the 1st Amendment.
See National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977)
Re:
Why? Or more accurately, how. Hate speech is not action.
And until someone comes along with some semblance of independent reasoning.
A claim without equality in acceptance is bound to be weaponised.
And where do you draw the line?
Does “I hate…” equate to hate speech.
I say it does. And thus should not be illegal.
Republicans: we will punish you in ways that will probably end in multiple retaliation suits in court against us!
Bantam Books
Umm… no. The Court in Bantam found that the government’s actions violated the 14th Amendment, not the 1st Amendment.