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Comment by QuickToBan | Hacker News Reader

Just how and why do corporations have free speech rights? Afaik, the Constitution doesn't grant any rights to corporations. Corporations are not individuals; they are capable of significant harm on a national or global scale.

From Wikipedia:

> Mehta ruled that requiring big pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices to consumers in television advertisements aimed directly at consumers would violate their free speech rights as corporations.[11]

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Corporations are just groups of people, do individuals lose the right of free speech when they assemble?

If a company puts out an ad, is that the speech of the assembled individuals? Which individual is responsible for the speech? What if the individuals within a company disagree with one another?

There has to be some kind of separation of "individuals" and "entity". To only see companies as simply "people" I think is short-sighted. A company is so much more than that.

If companies are truly entitled, as an entity, to protection of speech, how do any marketing/advertising regulations stay valid, period?

Fraud is as illegal for individuals as it is for corporations. That isn't really a speech issue as it is a commerce and contract issue. Anything outside of fraud, libel/slander or calls to violence should be legal under the constitution. The more you look you will find the constitution is routinely ignored.

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