The FCC has the authority to ban swearing and nudity on public television. States can ban nudity, profanity, and (in my state) adult video-store ads from highway signage. States can control what teachers instruct students with (who wants a flat-earth teacher?) I don't see why a law, which generically states that recommendation algorithms operated by a publicly-owned company must bias towards intellectually stimulating content, would necessarily be a violation of the First Amendment without undermining earlier accepted laws.
FCC rules are in place because those things you mention are a part of the commons. Publicly-viewable by anyone, and also exclusionary: someone broadcasting on particular airwaves or putting up advertisements takes up physical space that no one else can use.
That's... not the same as a service on the internet, at all.
You're also talking about a completely different regulation regime. The FCC rules prohibit certain (fairly narrow?) things, largely "obscenity". A regulation that requires a company to actively promote certain things is... not even remotely the same.
I have seen and heard way too many dumb things by people in suits in the finest language, so I do not think focusing on this is helping much.
"recommendation algorithms operated by a publicly-owned company must bias towards intellectually stimulating content"
How would you even define "intellectually stimulating content" in juristical clear terms?
If I would want to increase the general level of science education (I strongly do), I would increase funding to schools and enable them to have fun experiments with the students of all sorts.
I love science, ever have and my teachers did the best they could, but even to me school was booring as hell.
> I don't see why a law, which generically states that recommendation algorithms operated by a publicly-owned company must bias towards intellectually stimulating content, would necessarily be a violation of the First Amendment without undermining earlier accepted laws.
This is an extremely misleading line of reasoning.
Publicly traded companies are not 'public' in the same sense as publicly owned airwaves, public (that is, government) employees, and public property. They don't cede any constitutional rights simply by offering equity for sale in the capital markets.
No, but the broader idea of sensationalist journalism wouldn't have been a foreign concept.
At any rate, there is a process for amending the Constitution, so if you want the First Amendment to change such that the federal government has a clear mandate to do this sort of thing, feel free to campaign for that. But just repeated violation by the state is not that process.
