Even if it falls under free speech, which it definitely doesn't AFAICT, it'd be essentially the same as allowing any food producer to just forego an ingredients list. Because surely, accurate ingredients are compelled speech and thus a free speech violation.
> The agency argued that a Tesla disclaimer, which says the "features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous," is not enough to make the advertising truthful. The "disclaimer contradicts the original untrue or misleading labels and claims, which is misleading, and does not cure the violation," the DMV said.<p>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?
This is a bad game of telephone where people discussing what they think Tesla lawyers said but not what they really said.<p>1. Tesla lawyers are not claiming that whatever Tesla said is fine because first amendment.<p>2. They are claiming that the laws DMV is using to go after tesla is invalid under first amendment.<p>Hopefully you can see the difference and see that everyone here argues 1. but not the 2.<p>The article is pretty clear so draw your conclusion about the state of online discourse.
The limits of this kind of commercial speech are very well settled.<p>Misleading commercial speech has no first amendment protection.<p>Tesla is just trying to generate news
Daydream: California makes it legal to claim "First Amendment!" when making false statements <i>to</i> Tesla. Including statements made in contracts, employment agreements, etc.
I often defend autopilot's use with real drivers. I've driven with it extensively and have seen how other people actually use the system. There are abuses, but no more than I've seen with other systems. And none of them have been fooled into thinking that it is autonomous when it is not.<p>I've even defended the name Autopilot, since we've accepted names like "ProPILOT" which are no different in my mind.<p>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.<p>The company should be forced to stop this practice. It is deliberately deceptive.
This case together with Meta's case that the FTC is unconstitutional shows a concerted effort from US big tech to do away with any type of US consumer protections. Truly, a country where corporations have more rights than its citizens.
The obvious solution is to permit corporations the same free speech as natural persons, but revoke their limited liability protections if they tell lies. AFAIK there's no constitutional requirement to let natural persons escape the harm they do by blaming it on a fictitious person. Limited liability is a privilege.
So defrauding someone is free speech? This is a hollow argument. Consumer rights should come first in any scenario because consumers are the vast majority.<p>The fact that this is even up for debate shows how much power corporations have in the US.
As always, there's no principle involved here. This is just neoliberalism run amok. Deregulation and privatization aren't lofty goals or even efficient. They're simply mechanisms for wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy, either directly or via the government.<p>Legally, this is a silly argument that will go nowhere. After all, isn't defamation just "free speech"?<p>This is just <i>vice signaling</i>. It's like virtue signaling but instead you're demonstrating your bad character.
Not two seconds ago I just watched Elon Musk break into my house, steal the copper out of my walls, kick my dog, and piss on the ashes of my dead grandma. Fortunately, libel is legal now because idiots continue not to understand how the first amendment works.