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Comment by na85 | Hacker News Reader

Money isn't speech.

What's being proposed is a ban on certain business transactions, not a ban on a particular issue of speech.

This is a tiresome argument. The first amendment guarantees freedom of the press (ie, the printing press). The clear aim is to guarantee not just the right to speech, but also the right to _distribute_ that speech. In fact, without that the right to freedom of speech is of limited value.

This doesn't mean Facebook couldn't ban political ads, but it does mean it would be unreasonable for the government to do so.

One could just as easily the aim is to protect political graffiti. Especially given the actions of the founders during the revolution.

The choice of protecting money is a strategic one, not one of judicial sobriety. And as we expect from that kind of ruling, it falls exactly along the political lines of the appointing president.

It is an extrapolation to suppose the founders intended allowing every avenue of distribution regardless of outcome. It's just as (un)clear the founders would be appalled at the current tight feedback from campaign finance which in many cases is indistinguishable from bribery.

And yet we regulate swear words and nude imagery on broadcast television because the airwaves are a limited public resource.

First ammendment absolutism in the face of rapidly changing technology is way more tiresome.

>And yet we regulate swear words and nude imagery on broadcast television

Maybe the reasonable answer is that you shouldn't, especially in the face of rapidly changing technology, which nowadays gives us huge choice of what to look at. The example of outdated censorship doesn't make a valid argument for more restrictions.

“Tv is ran by money; how am I supposed to be?” - Lil B

> Money isn't speech.

there are several supreme court cases that have ruled differently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo

For better or worse, it legally is in the USA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) for what we're talking about.

To say that it's controversial would be an understatement.

money isn't speech but the courts that ultimately decide this in the USA are directly appointed by someone who got elected using money instead of speech.

There are many elections in the US, including the last Presidential one, where the winner spent nowhere near as much as the loser.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...

Clinton spent nearly double what Trump did.

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