.. and people are replying to you and _still_ defending the government and think they should have unilateral power over their people

I'm kind of speechless about how many people think this ruling is a bad thing.. like who in the hell out there believes the government should have OPINIONS? Can one of you reply to me?

It's as stupid of a concept as a corporation having an opinion.. opinions are reserved for PEOPLE and I have no idea how you could come up with an argument to change my mind on that.

I guess I don’t understand your point here unless we’re being ultra-literal and saying a corporation can’t have an opinion because it doesn’t have a physical brain developing individual thought.

An example of “corporate opinion” off the top of my head: Facebook is in favour of advertising. I guess it's just a shorthand for "the executive board and shareholders of Facebook share the collective view that advertising is good" but I don't think anyone is particularly confused about what is meant when someone says Facebook is favour of something.

The CEO decides who manages which roles and divides authority. Opinions comes from these power structures. They could be divided on issues or unified. They speak for the company.

Google is so big you often have conflicting goals from different power structures.

In that situation I'd say Google is conflicted on the topic. It's still not all that different from a human being, IMO, I can be internally conflicted on a topic and find it difficult to find an opinion that encompasses all of my thoughts.

I get that it's shorthand and euphemism but I don't think it's all that confusing.

> I'm in favour of more bike lanes in my city but I don't consider that an opinion

...I do not understand why not. To my perception that is very much the definition of an opinion.

But anyway, we clearly have a bunch of different definitions in play here. I think we can safely agree to disagree.

If you like rain because it waters your garden I'd hesitate to call that opinion because you have a factual reason.

If you like rain because it sounds pleasant that's an opinion.

If you like rain because it restores your chi it's (probably) an opinion.

I say governments and corporations can't have opinions for lots of reasons. One of them being they're not people, others that follow from that, like you need thoughts or feelings to have an opinion.

It just doesn't sit right with me having faceless entities publishing opinions because by definition opinions aren't based on facts and we have enough of a problem with regular people spreading misinformation.

To start, "I like rain" is a factual statement derived from your opinion, not an opinion itself. So let's change it for "rain is good":

> If you think rain is good because it waters your garden I'd hesitate to call that opinion because you have a factual reason.

> If you think rain is good because it sounds pleasant that's an opinion.

You're making distinctions that don't exist.

Thinking rain is good because it waters your garden is based on the fact that it will help your garden grow.

Thinking rain is good because it sounds pleasant is based on the fact that you enjoy the sound of the rain.

Both of these ignore counter-factuals. Sure, you think rain is good because it waters your garden, I think rain is bad because I live at the bottom of the hill and all that rainwater frequently floods my house. I think rain is bad because I dislike the sound.

Your opinion is based on the fact most relevant to you, my opinion is based on the fact most relevant to me. Choosing which facts are most important is a personal choice that results in an opinion. They're all opinions! To finally bring the thing full circle:

> But Facebook supporting marketing because they make more money with marketing can be a verified fact

It is an opinion supported by fact. A Facebook exec could make the argument that they could make more money by dropping advertising and instead charge a monthly membership fee. There are definitely fewer facts available to back up that opinion but it would still be a valid one.

I had to, your original post contained two factual statements and no opinions, so there was nothing to argue!

Based on your previous replies I think your distinction is that liking the sound of rain is different because it’s a thought conjured up inside your head? “It is good that my garden grows” is also a thought conjoured up in your head that others may disagree with. Your argument seems to require some kind of appeal to objective authority that doesn’t exist.

(I know I said the last post was the end for me but I’ll admit to being somewhat fascinated by the counter argument here)

You've continuously refused to define opinion for me and continuously refuse to put anything in your own words. You throw paragraphs of strawman at me because I'm being unclear. You throw 3 dictionary links in my face with at least 25 different definitions and can't zero in on a single one.

Back at the top you said:

> An example of "corporate opinion" off the top of my head: Facebook is in favour of advertising.

Can you first confirm you said that and you stand by the statement? If you do, explain to me how Facebook saying "we are in favour of advertising" is an opinion.

Now explain to me how "I like rain" is different and not an opinion. You told me "I like rain" is "a factual statement derived from your opinion" and not an opinion and then used that to strawman my argument.

Where I stand "I am in favour of advertising" is the exact same format and is not an opinion from YOUR definition. So how about you explain exactly what you want from me because your contradictions are confusing me.

I am going to stop. Your definition of opinion is not one I've ever encountered before but you're welcome to hold it. I can't see any point in continuing to explain the differences.

> An example of "corporate opinion" off the top of my head: Facebook is in favour of advertising.

How is Facebook saying "we are in favour of advertising" an opinion?

How is "I like rain" is different and not an opinion? You told me "I like rain" is "a factual statement derived from your opinion" and not an opinion and then used that to strawman my argument.

Where I stand "I am in favour of advertising" is the exact same format and is not an opinion from YOUR definition. How are they different?

That's just your opinion. Others are of the opinion that corporations are in fact people and deserve all the protections that people deserve regarding free speech. Some such people even sit on the Supreme Court! Materialists would even go so far as to argue countries are conscious.

To me am opinion is a belief you have that's not based on facts.

Why do you want your government to have a belief not based on facts? Furthermore, why would you want the government to push this belief on its people?

Lastly why would you care about the opinion (remember: an opinion is a belief that isn't based on facts) of a corporation to the point that you'd defend their right to make statements that aren't factual?

> Why do you want your government to have a belief not based on facts?

There's some kind of fallacy at work here, you're establishing what your personal definition of something is then arguing with OP while taking your personal belief as fact.

"Opinions are not based on facts" definitely isn't a universally accepted definition of an opinion. An opinion doesn't have to be based on facts but it's not precluded from it.

I can work with you if we have a common understanding but we're not at that point yet.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/opini...

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/opinion

You had me define it in my own words and was able to tell me I'm wrong but you never gave me the same chance.

There's a reason why people throw their hands up and say "it's just my opinion!" when they're blatantly wrong about something. It's a phase used to indicate they don't care about facts and they don't have to defend their position, which I thought was the common definition of opinion: a position one holds even when the facts say they're wrong.

* online advertising allows consumers to learn about new products and services

* advertising incentivizes user data collection in order that it may be more effective.

From just these two facts one could easily come to a pro- or anti-advertising position based on their values and the relative weights they choose to put on each fact.

You just dislike corps and it's undermining every thought you have on this topic.

I'll proudly admit I have no trust in corporations, but dislike is a little far. There's corporations I like but there's no corporations I trust.

You may like thier products or services but that's not the same as liking the corp itself.

For example, I like Adidas shoes but when they boast about sustainability I question the truth in that and their intentions.

I prefer Pepsi over Coke but I don't trust either to be truthful in their marketing. I think it's bullshit that Santa prefers Coke, for one he's not even a real person, but I don't dislike Coke for using Santa as a mascot.

I hate Disney though and I firmly believe they're among one of the worst companies on the planet. I oppose anything they do out of principle and believe every decision they make needs to answer yes to the question "Will this make us a billion dollars?" I hope to live to see the day they fold and disappear forever.

So no, I don't dislike every corporation and my inherit distrust doesn't undermine my views one bit. I don't know how one can possibly trust a capitalist company whose motives are primarily profit driven. I don't know how one could think a company stands for anything that wouldn't make them money or would honestly have a goal that wasn't driven by profits.

A good barometer on if a company has morals is if they use rainbow logos in Saudi Arabia during June. Try coming up with a single argument for why a company world proudly display them in North America but not in the Middle East without mentioning profits or market share, and good luck. I personally think it's completely indefensible.

One can "love" something or someone but not "like" it.... Is that something you're not aware of?

Liking something and trusting something are different things. I don't trust a single company and it doesn't matter if I like, hate, or love them. They're two mutually independent feelings no matter what you want to call one of them.

I made the distinction between like and affection because they aren't the same at all.

You subsequently failed at basic comprehension.

Drink some coffee and try again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36621860

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...

Well, I wouldn't presume to make you think, but _BY DEFINITION_ corporations are legal persons.

Corporation. Incorporate. Corporeal.

This is a legal definition, not biological or sociological or religious or whatever else.

And under that legal framework, the corporation can act as a person and enter into contracts, initiate lawsuits, be sued, be prosecuted, etc. And more basically, the corporation can make public statements which express the _opinion_ of the corporation.

Once folks set aside political bigotries, this shouldn't be a hard concept to understand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_opinion

It ain't the same ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same freakin' sport.

Equating the two is like equating a sea sponge and a dish sponge. "Well, they're both sponges!"

Actually, they can[0] be. In fact, I use sea sponges as dish sponges every single day.

[0] https://www.naturalbathbody.com/natural-sea-sponges/

You admitted a judicial opinion is different from a personal opinion and you're making fun of my definition of a personal opinion? But you acknowledge a judicial opinion is different than a person opinion?

Why can't you extend that to a corporation? The "opinion" of a corporation or a judge is NOT the same as a personal opinion and there is a distinction that can/should be made. I'm not sure why you can agree with someone else that a judicial opinion is different than a personal opinion but when I say "not people opinions" are different from "people opinions" I'm wrong?

If you are the White House, you are not a regulator of anything. It is fine to express your opinion. In fact the White House has a daily press briefing for specifically that purpose. It is fine to call out people with whom you disagree. Perfectly OK to call them dangerous charlatans and liars. It is not OK to censor their speech. It is not OK use the implicit coercive force of the executive branch to encourage third parties to censor them.

It's not hard to understand.

If you are the White House, you are the ur-regulator of anything any part of the executive branch is a regulator of, as well as the things that the Executive Office of the President is the actual direct regulator of (which are mostly internal to government operations.)

Edit: Amazing, a perfect factual comment is downvoted.

There is a diff between opinion and force/blackmail disguised as opinion.

"You have a fine shop here, would be a shame if it burned down".

Syntactically, it is an opinion. But it is not just an opinion if comes from a mobster.

Edit: Think about this. If it is just an opinion, they can say that in press releases and not communicate that in secret to social media companies.

What they can’t do is ring up Twitter and Facebook and say, hey, that’s misinformation, do something about it. Or have government embeds giving guidance.

That’s hilariously very ayatollesque behavior!

How can anyone defend this behavior? Just because it's your guy doing it? If Trump was telling Twitter to delete posts that hurt his re-election chances would you feel this same way?

Never did I say that I support governments. I was only asking what I thought (and was wrong about) was a positive provoking question.

That doesn't sound right to me. You basically just argued "The purpose of a right to free speech is to protect the right of free speech." It's circular reasoning. Why should free speech be a right?

Out of curiosity I pulled up an article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

One principle put out by John Stewart Mill is that free speech is valuable because it leads to the truth. If this is correct you should arguably be concerned if the government can't engage in it because we will all be lead away from the truth.

The article says "... arguments show that one of the main reasons for justifying free speech (political speech) is important, not for it's own sake but because it lets us exercise another important value (democracy)."

So if we accept this then if censoring the strong undermines democracy it could be bad, especially if they became strong because the weak elected them into office to represent them.

The article quotes someone who says "Speech, in short, is never a value in and of itself but is always produced with the precincts of some assumed conception of good."

In other words, don't argue free speech is good because free speech is good.

That's not what GP argued, and you're being quite uncharitable. Their argument goes something like this:

    1) Free speech is meant to protect those that don't have a monopoly on speech 
    2) The government has a monopoly on—or can coerce—speech (because it taxes you, appoints the judges, has a police force, etc.)
    3) Therefore, protecting the free speech of the government is not really a stewardship of free speech

You lost me here.

How can the government have a monopoly on speech if we're talking about the government being prevented from saying things by a judge?

On (1): yes, that's the idea behind the independent role of the judiciary. They're supposed to be quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Sometimes, it doesn't work out, but usually it does. I'll concede that there's gray area here, but not quite enough to make the argument non-coherent.

On (2): the government can definitely say things (the White House literally has a Communications Director), but also (and more importantly) both stifle and coerce speech. I'm not sure how you came to this second conclusion.

Imagine I'm a visitor from mars and you tell me the government has a monopoly on speech. I say, fascinating, so only the government is allowed to talk?

And you say, well no, anybody can talk, generally.

And I say, oh, do you mean the government does the majority of the talking?

And you say no, most talking is done by private individuals.

And I say oh, do you mean the government decides what people can say?

And you say no, no exactly, see there's these people called judges who are not quite the government who prevent the government from deciding what people can say.

And I'm thinking "?????????"

Ah gotcha, yeah maybe that's too strong of a premise. You can probably fix it by saying "potential monopoly" or something in the vein of "it would be easiest for the government to monopolize speech," as historically, freedom of the press was meant to counter or criticize strong central governments (e.g. monarchies).

First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Constitutional Oath taken by all current Supreme Court Justices: "I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

The Supreme court has never said anything like what you just typed in 200+ years of american history. Do you type this every day, constantly knashing you teeth at the existence of trade secret laws, copyright laws, libel laws, and the like, or does the rheteric come out in service of special goals?

The spirit of free speech is to protect saying things that are either unpopular or inconvenient to the powerful. Speech that is popular or convenient to the powerful needs no such protection! Even in the most repressive states you can still praise the party or the dear leader.

The truths that we need free speech to find are not the congenial truths, but the inconvenient ones.

If I profess those same beliefs while acting in a public capacity I am infringing on the rights of others by favoring or creating the impression of favoring a particular religion.

You individually have freedom of association. If you don't like gay people, or Vietnamese people, or MAGA republicans - ultimately nobody can make you be friends with them in your private life. However, acting in an official capacity you're absolutely obliged to be neutral.

The government very rightly has restrictions on how partial it can be as it is the arbiter of our society.

We’re talking about the government coercively censoring speech of citizens in/on the media, not under emergency orders or commandeering, but as a matter of routine. Yes they’ve always done this even with the major news networks thirty or forty years ago (pre-Internet). It was wrong then just like it’s wrong now. It’s more visible and obvious now to more people, the evidence is right in front of us through leaks and email disclosures from efforts like the Twitter files.

But their right to free speech ends when they start to hurt citizens' rights to express themselves.

You cannot be serious.

Is free speech important solely because it protects you against a malicious government and therefore there's no issue at all with non-government entities censoring others' speech and no reason for the government itself to have it? Or is it important because the marketplace of ideas confers some societal benefit and it would be better if agents of the government were equal participants in that market?