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Notes -
Not saying I disagree with the decision, but the issue with that film in particular was not so much that it existed but the means by which they intended to get it on television. In a normal situation you'd make a film and then shop it around to networks with the idea that they give you money in exchange for the rights to air it, the idea being that the network would be able to cover this cost through advertising or subscription fees or whatever. The producers at Citizens United never attempted to do this. Instead they wanted to pay Comcast to make it available on-demand. The on-demand element complicates things a bit, but keep in mind that in most situations where a producer is paying a network to air content it's in the context of leased access sold to advertisers. This makes it a thornier question because most of the stuff that we view as legitimate discourse isn't being paid for by people who have a stake in how we react to it. If a popular automotive review show gives the new Ford Bronco a good review we give that review a certain amount of credibility. The amount of credibility we give it changes if we know that someone paid them to give it a good review. There's a fine line between commentary and advertising, and the rules about what you can do if something's an ad are a lot different than if it's just a genuine expression of opinion. To my recollection, Citizens United didn't even try to pretend that it wasn't an ad and instead leaned into the First Amendment aspects. I'm not going to offer an opinion of whether the court was right or wrong here, I'm just pointing out that the case wasn't as clear cut as one may assume based on the facts alone. It was pretty clear from the beginning that the case was mostly about political advertising and whether outside groups could run unlimited ads.
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