I strongly believe in Hulu's right as a private business to decide this.
The key here is that Democrats are outraged at Hulu, but they're not trying to change laws to force Hulu to carry these ads.
That is in contrast to the other side of this debate about deplatforming, which has repeatedly proposed laws that violate the First Amendment because the marketplace of ideas rejects their regressive propaganda.
Yep. The answer here is that Hulu should probably run the ads. Free speech is more than an amendment, it's a social value that should be respected by everyone, not just the government. I'm sure I'd disagree with every one of these ads but I would still like to see them run, because allowing people I don't like to speak is what protects MY right to speak.
I disagree. I don't think ads are the same as individual people being able to express themselves, and having one conpany reject political ads isn't preventing the politicians from expressing themselves altogether. Hulu also has discretion to choose which ads to air. Undoubtedly there are a great number of submissions, I'm sure not all of them make the cut for various reasons. What criteria should they use? Highest paying ads? Extending ad time to ensure all ads submitted can air? What if someone submitted an ad supporting ISIS or other extremist speech?
Should a business be forced to air content they don't want to be associated with or perceived as endorsing? It has already been established companies are not obligated to do business they find violate their 1A rights, so this would seem to fit into that precedent.
Moreover politicians aren't being silenced, there are a vast number of different avenues they can (and do) use to spread their campaign information.
If it's campaign ads being more equitably presented, there are a number of ways to approach this that don't involve forcing a private business to accept any and all ad content.
> Should we allow cigarette ads again? Where's the limit?
Cigarette ads are totally irrelevant to this controversy.
Cigarettes are a non-ideological, commercial product without any therapeutic uses. We can suppress all mention of them from the media, and we would be in no danger of death, tyranny, etc. In fact, there would be far fewer deaths, as we've seen in the last few decades.
Suppressing political ads does carry the risk of death and tyranny. The whole reason people are worried about the erosion of free speech is that suppression of potentially valid ideologies is extremely dangerous.
I actually think we should allow cigarette ads again, I don't think anyone is harmed by being able to see a sign telling them something.
But also, think about it this way: isn't this the other side of the slippery slope argument? I'm sure when cigarette ads were first banned, people made the argument that it would be used to justify banning other ads later, and were told that was a slippery slope fallacy... Now, you're essentially saying "we've already banned cigarette ads, if we're not going to ban gun ads too then we might as well re-allow cigarette ads!"
That's not what I am saying. I'm saying that society has deemed the cigarette ads (in the US) to be something we don't want. The ad types in this thread seem to be going the same way, and hopefully pharma ads will follow later.
The first amendment does not compel speech or publication thereof.
Ads in general are probably something society doesn't want, because you have to pay people (in the form of ad-supported content) to look at them. You might say that most people in society think cigarette or gun ads (or DNC political spots) are particularly objectionable. But, I don't believe that that's a reason to ban them.
I'm completely in agreement that the law doesn't compel speech, or publication, especially of ads. Hulu is completely legally in the right to not carry DNC ads, Google and Facebook are completely legally in the right not to carry Colt or Remington ads. They'd also be in the right not to carry Altria ads. But the question is what speech do we want to ban by law... and I think the only answer to that for a healthy, free society is "none."
I even go further and say that respecting free speech exists outside the first amendment as a societal value that we should all hold, like "politeness" and "honesty," and that it should be kept even when not legally required... So Hulu _should_ run the ads, even though they are not _required_ to.
You can believe what you want, we tolerate flat earthers too
> I think the only answer to that for a healthy, free society is "none."
This is not true or healthy in the internet age where speech can reach all of humanity in seconds and we are plagued by bad actors without the ability to easily rein them in. Telling people to do their own research or be safe does not scale and the negative externalities end up costing society more.
A company or platform that wants to allow unfettered speech is free to compete with those who filter & curate. We can then see without doubt which society prefers
Hmm. So the way I interpret this is: true free speech lets people say things that are wrong, and leads to people believing things that are wrong. A company that allows it will perform worse in a market because of people believing those wrong things. An analogous thing would happen to a society allowing it, so, to have our society be stronger economically, we should have limits on speech. Is that close to right?
If so, my argument is this: a company and a country have different goals. Many things that a country might provide (welfare programs, democracy, public services) are expenses that don't make us economically stronger. But, we do anyway because that's not the point of a country: the point is to provide the best quality of life for citizens. I'm happy to accept the drawbacks of free speech (people believing in Q, or that the Apollo landings were faked) in exchange for being able to say whatever I want. If you aren't, then there are other countries that make the other tradeoff.
I think this is the core of what's going to be a big debate over the next decade or two, though: is it better to be less productive and free (America), or more efficient but authoritarian (China)?
> A company that allows it will perform worse in a market because of people believing those wrong things.
This is not why. Look at 4Chan, Parlor, Truth, or any other "free speech" platform. It ends up being toxic and noisy to the point that the vast majority of people will not use it. Thus the company fails, because it cannot reach critical mass for a 2 sided marketplace.
> I'm happy to accept the drawbacks of free speech (people believing in Q, or that the Apollo landings were faked) in exchange for being able to say whatever I want. If you aren't, then there are other countries that make the other tradeoff.
We live in a democracy and you might be the one looking to other countries, if any exist who want to support such an unfettered society. I don't know of any... and even if they did exist, if your company wants to operate in a given country, it has to follow the local laws.
We do not live in a pure democracy, we live in a constitutional republic. Our lawmakers aren't able to create certain laws because of limits on their power in the constitution; one of those limits is that no law can be passed abridging the freedom of speech. No matter how many people vote for it, without amending the constitution to remove that protection first, it will not happen. And the process for passing that amendment is intentionally cumbersome, for that reason.
> 4Chan, Parlor, Truth, or any other "free speech" platform. It ends up being toxic and noisy to the point that the vast majority of people will not use it.
4Chan and Parler seem to exist just fine. 8Chan doesn't, or was killed and then revived, or something, I'm not sure, but it wasn't due to lack of users; their host canceled them. Never heard of Truth before now, it seems to be Trump's Twitter clone that contains just Trump?
Anyway, my point is not that these free-speech-platforms are more successful than curated ones. My point is that that's the wrong metric to judge whether free speech is a good value to have in a society. I don't care if there are costs to it any more than I care whether the post office is profitable: I don't want to live in a society without freedom of speech, no matter how efficient it is, any more than I'd want to live in one without a post office or a fire department. I am willing to pay for the externalities because the alternative is much, much worse.
From your other reply: if I'm letting my bias in, then how am I misinterpreting what you say? I genuinely want to understand your position.
Letting your biases shine through affects more than your interpretation of what I say, it permeates from all of your speech. Most people do not want what you want, but you characterize that as being at the other extreme, and therefore must be disastrous, while your solution is the savior of all. Step back to see that your "solution" is unworkable, that it does not reflect what the vast majority want.
Again, you have a problem in that you only appear to think at the extremes. What concessions to your vision would you be willing to make?
Looking back at what I've said in this thread, it's "free speech is a societal value like honestly and politeness, not just a constitutional right," "I would be in favor of lifting bans on cigarette ads," "people don't like watching ads but we shouldn't ban them anyway," "I don't think we should be banning any speech," and "the point of a free country is to have a good standard of living for its citizens more than to make money."
There's only one thing in there that I think any reasonable person could think is extreme, and that's having no bans on speech. I'm overall happy making the concessions to this that America already makes.
As for the rest of it: if that sounds extreme to you then I really don't think I'm the one with biases, and I really don't think there's going to be much common ground between us. It's cliche at this point but do you talk about this stuff to a lot of people who aren't on the internet? Because outside the bubble of social media and this website, nothing I've said here would be controversial at all.
I also notice that you think I'm misinterpreting what you said, but still won't say how... Which makes me think that I'm not misinterpreting it at all, you just don't like having a corollary of your beliefs pointed out to you.
Anyway this has been fun but I'm finished now, the anti-flame-war filter is making it take forever to post replies.
dude, you really need to step back and read the words you are writing...
Have a look at the patterns and trends in your comment history, or better yet, have a trusted friend do this if they will give you an honest opinion. Thing is, the internet is more likely to tell you what you need to hear
I don't have any reason to explain myself to you more than I have, not worth the time with your attitude
When "your guys" are pushing women into desperate, life-threatening situations due to a condition which occurs in 2% of pregnancies... yeah, "my guys" are clearly better than "your guys".
The key here is that Democrats are outraged at Hulu, but they're not trying to change laws to force Hulu to carry these ads.
That is in contrast to the other side of this debate about deplatforming, which has repeatedly proposed laws that violate the First Amendment because the marketplace of ideas rejects their regressive propaganda.