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0 pointspikzen9y ago0 comments

>Can I create a video and post it on my private youtube channel, as a private individual?

Yes.

>Can I spend $10 million creating the youtube video, if I have that much money as a private individual?

Yes. However, if it turns out that those ten million were gathered from other friends, explicitly in the goal to make this video without disclosing your donors or ignoring the caps, you should be fined and be made unelectable for multiple years.

>Can I organize a group of 10 friends to each spend $1 million on the youtube video?

Not if that video is part of your campaign, because then the amount each person can donate is capped.

>Can I organize 1 million people to spend $10 each on said video?

Yes.

The only real problem in those four is the third. Because it is infinitely easier to organize only ten friends to donate one million to your campaign than to organize one million people, especially if you're already in the category of people that can afford to blow ten millions like that.

As a bonus, at least having one million people donating to you demonstrates that you actually have people following you.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

bzbarsky9y ago· 2 in thread

This was apparently not clear: in all those questions the "I" posting the video is not the person running. That's the context of the Citizens United decision.

pikzenOP9y ago

Then you are more than welcome to blow as much money as you'd like on your favourite candidate! And since it's on Youtube, noone is "forced" to watch your video, they can always switch to something else.

However, TV and cable channels (as well as press) should have strict equality rules when it comes to candidates for a given period until the elections. What good will your ten million dollars video do on CNN when they are legally obligated to give every candidate the same amount of air time? But of course, you could skirt around it, and make your video subtly hint about said candidate, never mentioning him. But if countries with civil law can manage to make that work when it comes to respecting the spirit of the law, I have no doubt a country with common law will have no issues realizing that this is quite obviously violating the spirit of the law.

bzbarsky9y ago

There is absolutely no principled difference between youtube and cable channels that I can see; people are easily able to "switch to something else", as you say, in both cases. Or indeed, shut off their TV. Doubly so if we're talking long-form content like that in the Citizens United decision, as opposed to 30-second ad spots.

Why do you think that there is a difference here?

> But if countries with civil law can manage to make that work when it comes to respecting the spirit of the law

For what it's worth, said countries typically have nothing comparable to the constitutional free speech protections the US has, and have no problem with the government imposing all sorts of speech limits that would get laughed out of court in the US.

And as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, speech that is not "for" any particular candidate but "against" a particular candidate is not trivial to apportion in an "equal time" regime.

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