[polygamous_bat]

> Letting people communicate freely is a good thing in its own right, and fundamental to so many other good things we enjoy

I would argue that paid advertisement is a force distorting free speech. In a town square, if you can pay to have the loudest megaphone to speak over everyone else, soon everyone would either just shut up and leave or not be able to speak properly, leaving your voice the only voice in the conversation. Why should money be able to buy you that power?

[jjk166]

I mean most town squares have no restriction on using a megaphone, and yet town squares have not been drowned out and rendered useless by megaphones. Even if that did happen, it would be a very poor analogue to generic advertising which can not drown out conversation. At best it would be an argument against megaphones over a certain volume, ie certain methods of communication might be reasonable to restrict, but restricting the ideas that can be expressed by megaphone is indefensible.

[chii]

> Why should money be able to buy you that power?

why shouldn't it?

If somebody believes that their message is important enough to outbid everybody else, their message ought to be the one that is displayed.

[polygamous_bat]

> If somebody believes that their message is important enough to outbid everybody else, their message ought to be the one that is displayed.

Sometimes (often?) people with a lot of money may not believe in speech but in suppressing speech. However, money should not allow for suppressing speech, for example by buying a giant megaphone and speaking over people.

By your logic paying people $500 to heckle at your political opponents rally is fine. It may be legally okay, but it is a moral hazard, and for a better society we should try to better distinguish between “free” speech and “bought and paid for” speech.

[onemoresoop]

If they believe their message is important they should do grassroots, talk to people and convince people to talk to other people. Trust me, if the message is good people volunteer their time.

The reality is that more often than not these messages are self serving and profit driven, many times borderline fraudulous in claims or questionable at best

[CJefferson]

Because that means something Elon Musk thinks is 0.00001% important outbids 99.99999% of peoples opinion on anything.