Corporate Free Speech Rights

The cluster debates whether corporations have First Amendment free speech rights akin to individuals, focusing on corporate personhood, Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United, and the distinction between corporate and human rights.

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Keywords

SCC US natlawreview.com AARP SCOTUS ATC LLC PEOPLE FBI NOT rights corporation corporations speech free speech amendment individuals free court legal

Sample Comments

Jeema101 May 4, 2020 View on HN

You're completely ignoring the fact that corporations are comprised of people, and as such have First Amendment rights of free speech and self-expression of their own.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

ghssds Apr 5, 2025 View on HN

Remind me why corporations are protected by human rights such as free speech.

yummyfajitas Jul 19, 2015 View on HN

You are conflating disparate issues.Corporations are people - this means that a corporation (rather than some of it's individual members) can own property and owe you money. If you want to sue or enforce obligations, you do it against the corporation itself rather than tracking down specific members and enforcing against them. That's all it means. If you eliminate this and then Comcast injures you, who do you sue?Freedom of speech is held by the owners of a corporation and

alistairSH Aug 26, 2025 View on HN

Yes. Loosely, corporations are just groups of people acting with similar goals and interests, so the free speech right flows to the company.

judge2020 May 1, 2023 View on HN

Corporations have the same rights as people; otherwise your freedom of speech and other rights could be abridged while you're conducting business as a corporation, which we don't want.

rayiner Apr 22, 2019 View on HN

It's more accurate to say "individuals don't cease to have rights just because they act through a corporation." There are some rights that don't make sense applied to a corporation, and people don't have those rights when acting through a corporate form. (E.g. the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.) But for most rights, deeming them inapplicable when people are acting as a corporation would be an extremely effective way to eviscerate the underl

seanicus Aug 26, 2025 View on HN

Well Actually I think you mean corporations exercising their right to free speech

badrabbit Apr 23, 2022 View on HN

No, rights are for people. Corporations are not groups of individuals but intangible logical entities that groups of individuals use to conduct business. By your logic, revoking the incorporation of a company is equivalent to murder as well? The individuals that own Disney are free to spend their profits however they wish or speak whatever they want like every individual. The ability to use their privilege of being able to conduct business and hire employees to an arbitrary end is not protected.

efitz Jul 5, 2024 View on HN

No, the first amendment allows PEOPLE the right of free speech. The core of my argument is that corporations themselves are NOT people. The individuals who work for (or own stock in) a corporation are people and can do what they want; they just shouldn’t be allowed to use the money and power of the corporation to advance their own agendas.

dpatru Jan 18, 2012 View on HN

If I have free speech rights, and if you have free speech rights, why should we not have free speech rights if we form a corporation and speak with one (amplified) voice?