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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

In the US giving equal time to all would likely be considered unconstitutional because you're limiting freedom of speech. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...)

What I like about Joel's approach is that it doesn't limit speech, but instead expands it online. I have no idea if Google (et al) would go for such a thing, essentially giving away ad time for free / cheap, but it's a great idea. YouTube has already sponsored debates where candidates take questions from the public (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN-YouTube_presidential_debate...) so it's not unthinkable.

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> considered unconstitutional because you're limiting freedom of speech.

Then amend the constitution to allow this particular limit on freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not a sanctum that has to be protected at all cost, even if we can see how it leads to the whole system going down the toilet.

Enforcing copyright is a form of limiting freedom of speech and the constitution obviously has no problems with it. If I cant publicly repeat what somebody else said because the speech is copyrighted, this is limiting my freedom of speech. I dont see that freedom of speech can be freely limited here (not only limited, but life+70yrs limited, meaning from my finite-lifespan point of view prohibited forever) but but somehow cant be limited to fix the utterly broken political/election system.

The problem with this proposal is that it specifically puts restrictions not just on speech in general, but on political speech. Allowing the government to mandate the content of political speech and media would set a dangerous precedent for the future, even if that wasn't the intent of the amendment.

And while technically speaking requiring that the LeafStorm News Network has to provide equal airtime for all political candidates might be more "fair," if I own the news network I should be able to accept or reject advertisers as I see fit, and if people don't think it's fair they can start their own news networks. Now if I voluntarily said, "I'm providing ten minutes of ad airtime each day for the candidates in this race free of charge, with no extra advertising permitted, and no PACs either," then that is well within my rights as a network owner, but it's not something we should require everyone to do.

Your news network depends on natural monopolies derived from public goods, such as frequency and orbital allocations for OTA and satellite broadcast and exclusive property access for cable networks. It seems "fair" to expect some kind of public access in return for the exclusive use of those public goods.

"Start their own news networks" is easy to say and impossible to do for many groups. Not all interests are represented by money; there are valuable causes that could never motivate enough donations to compete.

From Wikipedia about "Citizens United v. FEC": "the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions."

The German system does not place rules on independent spending; it only requires TV channels to provide ad space for political parties that run for office. The amount of space is tied to the relevance of the party, usually measured by the success in the previous election. The TV channel can charge the party 35% of the usual price, this is considered to be the cost price of the channel. [1]

Parties are, of course, allowded to buy additional space, but they would have to pay the usual price. In other words, the German law doesn't limit independent spending.

[1] http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Grundlagen_f%C3%BCr_Wahlwerbung...

> The amount of space is tied to the relevance of the party

How is this justified? Bigger parties are already popular enough, why should they get more media exposure than unknown parties? This is basically like giving the winner of one race a time advantage in the next race, making it even more difficult for other contestants to catch up.

It's a law. The justification is that it's made by democratically elected representatives. It's also not that much of a problem since we have a 5% barrier. Smaller parties usually have less money to spend on TV ads, anyway.

Note that this didn't prevent new parties to become popular. In the last 25 years or so, Germany has seen the rise of the Green party, and the Left party. Today, the Pirate Party seem to be on the rise. It seems to be a rather stable yet permeable system.

Sounds like ye need to change your free speech laws. After all, you can't shout fire in a crowded theatre because it would harm the public good. Likewise, surely only giving one political party airtime harms the public, in the long run.

> After all, you can't shout fire in a crowded theatre because it would harm the public good.

That's not true; there's no general "harming the public good" exception to the First Amendment. There are exceptions for lying (i.e., making false statements with knowledge that they are false (or with reckless disgard of whether they are false) and intent to deceive), and that's the actual reason why it is unprotected to falsely shout "fire" in a crowded theater.

> After all, you can't shout fire in a crowded theatre because it would harm the public good.

How does it "harm the public good" to shout fire in a crowded theater when there actually is a fire?

What? Your public good rule is more complex? That's your plan to avoid the law of unintended consequences? (Of course, many of those so-called unintended consequences aren't actually unintended so much as things that one isn't willing to argue for.)

YouTube sponsoring the debate gave them valuable exposure and audience participation which has positive value. Google giving away ad space has neither of these benefits.

If there was a way to opt out of exposure to political advertising (kind of like can-spam and do-not-call lists), and most Americans adopted this option, maybe it would remove the motivation to exercise this 1st amendment right.

Even better: the key word is "give"

All google has to do is 'give' x ad views before some videos on youtube, for each candidate. If someone tries to get Google to do otherwise, they're limiting GOOGLE'S freedom of speech.

It's a nice thought, but Google could be seen as making campaign donations in kind by doing so -- given that there's a monetary value associated with such media placements. Unless I'm mistaken, that's still illegal under current campaign financing laws.

That said, if Citizens United is any indication, Google could simply donate the money to buy the placements to a Super PAC, which could then buy the placements for each candidate back from Google. Sort of a silly workaround, but hey, it might be a fun way to subvert the outcome of Citizens United.

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