The Stop Online Piracy Act was proposed months ago and I posted about it on my Facebook and blogs. Some response but minimal response. Then on January 18th 2012, dozens of popular websites including Tumblr, Google and Wikipedia posted warnings about the law and suddenly all my Facebook friends and blog readers were informed and incensed over the issue.
So Richard warning you about an internet censorship law = “meh. okay. might take a look at that some time.”
Corporations warning you about an internet censorship law = “holy shit!?? waaa?? WE MUST FIGHT THIS!”
and I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is that so many of the people who reacted to the warning from the corporations want to censor corporations from engaging in free speech rights. They want to fight against limiting speech on the internet (as notified and persuaded by the information supplied by a corporation) but they want to limit the speech corporations are allowed to engage in.
I’ve been asking this for the past year and am still looking for a pundit or activist to supply a relevant, logical answer: Why do you want to limit corporate speech?
I strongly suspect that the reason I am unable to get a coherent answer from anyone who advocates censoring corporate speech is that they do not have one. They have an emotion-based hippie-propaganda fed position that corporations are by definition evil and thus must be restrained whenever possible.
And that’s stupid.
There are already laws against defamation. You can’t just broadcast total lies without legal repercussions. Furthermore: You hypocrites have benefited from corporations informing you about things. So what is the argument? I would say that perhaps it is just an inherent leftist distrust in non-government groups of organized people, except these same people strongly support unions and dont want THEIR speech limited in any way, so that’s clearly not the issue. There is no issue. It’s just illogical anti-capitalism as far as I can see and if i’m being short-sighted on the issue then – for the love of God – educate me. I’m ASKING for the logic behind your position and you’re giving me nothing.
Why should corporations be allowed to sell us cars, food and medicine – but not ideas?
Why do you want to allow a soda company to spend unlimited millions of dollars to convince us to buy cans of chemically flavored sugar water but you want to forbid that same company from spending money to convince us to support free speech rights?
UPDATE: 1 month after this post, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer agreed with me on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” It’s possible he arrived at this agreement by reading the Constitution, but more likely – he probably reached this conclusion after reading my blog.
Via the Daily Caller:
Spitzer explained to Maher that there is no distinction between some of the shows on the airwaves, all owned by corporations and corporations participating in politics through paid advertising.
“Your show is owned by a corporation,” Spitzer said to Maher. “So you have a First Amendment right. And so, I don’t know how you distinguish between the New York Times editorial page, Rachel Maddow, George [Stephanopoulos]‘s show — all owned by corporation, corporations’
“The First Amendment: shall make, pass no law abridging the right of speech. Doesn’t say by anybody, it says speech. I don’t care whose speech it is. The ACLU agrees with me and Larry Lessig, great academic on this. So this is a more textured issue. It has done horrific things to politics. But as a First Amendment issue, it’s a much more complicated issue.”
Spitzer explained there could be restrictions, but ultimately he said the democracy would be better for the free speech.
“We can limit contributions to candidates, and we should be able to do that. We should mandate absolute disclosure. But as a First Amendment principle, people should be able to say what they want, how they want with their own money. I don’t care if it’s [Sheldon] Adelson or somebody who is of my political views on the left. Let speech breed speech. You never defeat speech by limiting speech is the First Amendment principle by which I live. I just think we’ll be a healthier democracy for it.”
