Tesla claims California false-advertising law violates First Amendment (opens in new tab)

Correct, this is the part of the article expressing this concept:

> 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 Supreme Court may soon decide to change how regulatory agencies can enforce those practices.

https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/11/supreme-court-app...

Since when is a ingredients list and ad? None of the ads related laws apply to ingredient lists. This utter nonsensical comparison that isn't rooted in any law, just a random idea some journalist apparently had.

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.)

They're allowed to put all sorts of things on food packaging because of "free speech". One example is misleading unprotected terms of provenance.

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.

There is a difference between the fine print adding conditions and the fine print going "not actually the case jinx". They say the latter is happening by asserting the fine print contradicts the marketing claims.

Actually, I'm not seeing much practical difference between the two. Could you elaborate on what you deem is obvious?

Checked the article, you're right, the headline is deceptive. It seems like the laws Tesla is referencing are things like "You must not call something autonomous unless it meets <some arbitrary definition of autonomous>". Meanwhile, "autonomous" is not a binary value, and it's hard to draw a line where autonomy begins. Reminds me of the "we'll know it when we see it" definition of pornography put forth by congress at one point.

I'd say only 30-40% of the population can grasp nuance like this and its the source of so. much. headache.

While there is some of the former here, the latter is adequately addressed.

A claim that the discussion is entirely mistaken is a quite commonly seen characteristic of the state of online discourse.

It’s probably organic. It often happens that the HN front page coalesces briefly on a theme. People see an article on a topic, research it a bit, and post what they find (or just repost something they remember from last week). And similarly it gets more upvotes on the “new” page because interest in the topic is active.

There are a surprising number of Apple and Tesla posts lately. While I am not yet convinced it is being outright paid for, but there does seem to be a higher concentration of specific brand advocacy here than there used to be. I wonder if it has to do with so many people also being share holders with a vested interest in their success?

Agreed.

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.)

Like with the Pepsi jet commercial?

Treating corporations as people is the biggest own goal of Neoliberalism. Now we are discussing fictional right to free speech of a fictional entity and imagining how it would affect an average Joe. For some reason we have to have the same law regulating speech of an average Joe and of a fictional entity that does not die and is controlled by ever changing charade of shareholders, each holding 1% or whatever.

It's the court's job to argue with idiots. Saves the rest of us some time and grief.

A company is not a natural person.

I miss the days when the work of lawyers wasn't being scrutinized on social media..

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?

Lawyers get paid to bend the law in your favour. There is nothing moral about it.

The lawyers are paid to represent the point of their clients, and that's what they do. What they personally think is definitely not getting on the outside. Or shouldn't.

Lawyers represent clients, regardless of guilt. Only shitty lawyers do otherwise.

Don’t have to be a true believer. Plenty of people willing to spout bullshit for pay.

No. What an ignorant question to ask. Any halfway decent lawyer would pursue all available avenues to defend their client. Challenging the Constitutionality of a law is not an admission that the client has violated said law.

Autonomous has a definition, and it's easily understood by normal people:

>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.

He also entered into a binding verbal agreement to give me $5 billion.

Libel in the US is very hard to fight because the first amendment makes so many things legal, a good example of what is almost certainly legal, your statement about Elon Musk.

Why would this not be legal?

Have you thought throught the consequences of making something like this illegal?

what is the point you're trying to make? it went over my head.