> Despite Tesla's free speech claim, the US and state governments can enforce laws banning deceptive practices that harm consumers. "Beyond the category of common-law fraud, the Supreme Court has also said that false or misleading commercial speech may be prohibited," a Congressional Research Service report last year stated. "For constitutional purposes, commercial speech is speech that does no more than propose a commercial transaction or that relates solely to the speaker's and audience's economic interests. Accordingly, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can regulate deceptive commercial speech without violating the First Amendment."
The very first requirement in the Central Hudson test is that the commercial speech not be misleading. This move from Tesla is either done to waste time or get free advertising. It’s certainly accomplished the latter.
They've proven multiple times they're willing to throw away decades of legal precedent over ideological motives already.
Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas. But there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact. Neither the intentional lie nor the careless error materially advances society's interest in "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" debate on public issues.
You can read more about Deception and the First Amendment in this UCLA Law Review article: https://www.uclalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/34_...
For censoring speech, we have before us two options:
Option A is to ban "mistruths", and to go down the philosophical pursuit of determining what is "fact" and what is fiction, which will change based on milieu, sentiment, those in power, etc., and will be argued endlessly. Then we need to get into "unintended mistruths" vs "intentional mistruths", etc.
Option B is to allow most speech and to only focus on tortious fictions (libel/slander).
I think most sane people would choose Option B. And yes, Iran will disagree with the "facts" of the American populace, as I assume a German will disagree as well :)
Contract law often gets into what is a statement of "material fact" vs. what is a statement of opinion. For example, a company can be sued for a statement like "contains 100% beef" and not for "delicious beef flavor" if the item in question has no beef in it. These torts are different from libel or slander, but they are often upheld in court. Misrepresentations can also be classified into honest mistakes or knowingly committing fraud. I think "most sane people" would argue the ability to sue over false claims of material fact are important commercial regulations.
Option A is eager evaluation. Option B is lazy
The answer is extremely, extremely simple actually: because the outcome of that would be bad, while the outcome of controlling misleading advertising is good.
It really is that simple.
I don't think that is how law should work. For some people the outcome of regulating free speech would be bad, many wouldn't care, and for many people (for example, for the President and his team, some of his supporters, members of the government) it would be great.
There is no such thing as "make something better for everyone". It is always "make better for one and worse for another". For example, if you raise minimum salary there will be people upset with that (people who pay the salary; people who see the prices raise).
Also it would be better if the law would be precise and there would be no need to interpret it in someone's favor.
> Also it would be better if the law would be precise and there would be no need to interpret it in someone's favor.
Sure would! Unfortunately we have no reason to believe this is even theoretically possible.
To
“We should restrict speech against the government”
?
Remember when the USA south kept saying “what’s next, marrying animals?!” With regard to legalizing equal marriage?
This shit doesn’t mean anything because rational people are capable of understanding nuance. So they’re literally just here to say stupid things and waste peoples time because we’re obligated to respond to this stupidity to make sure that nobody confuses lack of response with validity.
Why not use 1'st amendment to protect financial fraud? If Tesla wins, then you can lie about financial products, shares and bonds. Stock market and pensions will collapse withing a week.
There have been some notable lapses in applying this principle in US history though.
30 Years ago any statement about any modern vehicle feature would have been misleading no one had to preemptively make them illegal. Such "laws" should simply not exists.
Yes you can, and they have. You might like regulations to work that way, but they don't. The government has appointed agencies to determine what is wrong or misleading, and the authority of those agencies has been backed up by the courts.
Individuals and companies that disagree with specific ruling by agencies do have the right to go to court of course, and have done so.
https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/11/supreme-court-app...
Also since Tesla does not officially make ads (may have changed recently, probably the reason why they looked into the law), this whole claim relates to the law limiting speech not to anything Tesla ever said in anything that could be considered an ad. The issue here is that the law forbids certain statements. That alone is the issue. Whether or not Tesla could/would/want to make these statements about heir car and if they would be truthful is completely irrelevant.
There isn't any allegation that the law was broken, the allegation is that the law limits speech that could be truthful and protected. (I'm not the court I wont decide if this is correct.)
e.g., Port wine made in California isn't really Port wine, but it's allowed on the market under that name.
Funny enough the only thing that really is protected like this is Scotch Whisky due to a trade agreement that has us hunting down any producer in the USA that advertises an American whiskey as a Scotch whisky.
Don't forget that "free range" chicken doesn't mean shit, neither does "grass fed" beef.
False advertising on food is everywhere in the USA.
Port wine has a legal definition in the US. You can't sell it as champagne or as cola.
However, it is true that ingredient, food and drink labels may have different definitions from those used in other countries, or from what you personally think they should be.
But they still have actual definitions that have to be followed. (Except for subjective, non-technical terms like "tasty", "artisanal", etc.)