> 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.
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.)
Is this not the same as saying the fine print does not override marketing claims? Does that not apply to all the cases of sneaky clauses hidden in the TOS by most businesses? Especially wrt privacy and selling data, etc?
1. Tesla lawyers are not claiming that whatever Tesla said is fine because first amendment.
2. They are claiming that the laws DMV is using to go after tesla is invalid under first amendment.
Hopefully you can see the difference and see that everyone here argues 1. but not the 2.
The article is pretty clear so draw your conclusion about the state of online discourse.
A claim that the discussion is entirely mistaken is a quite commonly seen characteristic of the state of online discourse.
Notes:
0 - https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human...
Would also explain why every single "union vs Tesla" story disappears so quickly from the frontpage.
Misleading commercial speech has no first amendment protection.
Tesla is just trying to generate news
First amendment protections should only apply to individuals anyway. Tesla doesn’t have a sane argument here since Tesla is not a person.
(I recognize there’s a whole bag of worms around corporations and attempts to treat them like individuals in the eyes of the law.)
Clearly, the mere fact that the newspaper is a corporation doesn't dissolve its speech rights (nor should it).
I've even defended the name Autopilot, since we've accepted names like "ProPILOT" which are no different in my mind.
Having said that, Tesla's phrasing for FSD is awful, and horribly misleading. I see the effects of this among non-owners all of the time. They really do think the system is fully self driving, when it is not.
The company should be forced to stop this practice. It is deliberately deceptive.
Lawyers represent a client. What they personally believe has nothing to do with it.
According to you, if it takes a true believer to be a Tesla lawyer, what does it take to be a public defence lawyer that represents murderers and sexual offenders?
Actual people. People who aren't fictional.
I've yet to see a good, ethically sound argument that corporations inherently deserve the same. They're not people. They aren't subjected to the same kinds of penalties as people even when they kill people. The stakes are different and so are the affordances a reasonable person can demand. So it seems eminently reasonable to consider the ethics of a lawyer representing a client just as one would consider the ethics of any vendor doing business with a shithead.
It takes to be a true believer in the rule of law, and the role of a defence lawyer in the system.
> I miss the days when the work of lawyers wasn't being scrutinized on social media.
Nah. People are free to criticise whatever they want to. There is no harm to it, and they absolutely have their right to express their opinion.
It is an important form of public participation.
The fact that this is even up for debate shows how much power corporations have in the US.
>denoting or performed by a device capable of operating without direct human control.
This is in direct contradiction to how Tesla says FSD is to be used:
>Full Self-Driving (Beta) is a hands-on feature. Keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times, be mindful of road conditions and surrounding traffic, and always be prepared to take immediate action.
The fact that we are still arguing about this, when there are literally autonomous taxis driving around San Francisco, is really strange.
Same as Waymo, but their time/circumstance limitations are less
Legally, this is a silly argument that will go nowhere. After all, isn't defamation just "free speech"?
This is just vice signaling. It's like virtue signaling but instead you're demonstrating your bad character.
Have you thought throught the consequences of making something like this illegal?
It's a non-sequitur though. Libel and false advertising are not the same thing.
I agree. But I don't agree that there's no harm to it. Tiktokers and Tweeters with zero understanding of the judicial system go online to harass the lawyers of whatever team they disagree with. That's causing harm. A parallel can be drawn between such behavior and that of people harassing actors who portrayed a villain in a movie/show really well - see Jack Gleeson and the death threats he received for playing King Joffrey too well in GOT.
To be clear, I am not saying we should impose limits on what can be said about lawyers. I'm merely stating I miss the days when social media addicts did not feel compelled to comment on legal matters.
So, they are saying that, even though they are totally lying, hypothetically, someone could build a “partial driving feature” that makes the vehicle “autonomous”?
Divorced from emotion, representation even for the most despicable of organizations powers the feedback loop of the judicial system, allowing it to set precedents, identify holes in law, etc.
I think the dynamics of defence and prosecution don't end at "One defends, one prosecutes". Defence forces Prosecution to devise a bulletproof case, they promote rigorous case preparation and ensure legal integrity. It's the same reason why we have opposition parties in politics. Without defence, how comprehensive would the prosecutions case be? Further illegal activity commited by the defendent gets uncovered all the time by prosecution, during the trial, due to the pressures applied on the prosecution by the defence.
Yes, the chemical companies actively poisoning the people should be burned to the ground, but, for the judicial system to function, they should receive zealous representation, and those representing them, should not be viewed as less-than.
That's my current take on it. Happy to be called naive and discuss this further.
That said, I think in practice this opens the door to decontextualizing any work done for a shitty corporation, not just legal representation. Obviously, I do not believe anyone should be legally enjoined from representing any defendant. And I think there is not just necessity but some nobility in a zealous defense of an individual, even a terrible one. On the other hand, we live in a rhetorically stupid time, and "well how can you judge me for working for the Torment Nexus?" is already something people dare believe. This reads to me as an inevitable way to buttress that position in practice.
So while I think you and I are fully agreed on representation in a legal court, I do think the court of public opinion--being functionally the last one really left to us as individuals within the polity--is probably fair game on that front. They are not, after all, actual people, and we are, so...
This is the biggest injustice in the world today. So much corporate harm is caused by their impunity. If I commit some kind of fraud that results in deaths of 10 people, I will probably get life sentence. But corporations do it routinely and nobody goes to jail.
They are only people when it suits them.
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 :)
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.
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