- Sometimes I love Bad Legal Takes,
especially when they come from add Bad Legal Takes.
And this one I think came up in the context of Section 230.
Someone says, "Google is a monopoly and therefore,
I guess, not a private company".
To which Ari Cohn,
who is generally an excellent legal commentator chimes in,
"Even if it was monopoly(and it's not),
that...doesn't make it not a private company."
To which the commentator helpfully responds,
"Before you try and be a smart,
Look up some basic definitions.
Let me start you off with a public company is one
that is traded publicly in the open market.
And Google? Well look!
The company went public
via initial public offering in 2004".
Public. No!
Oh, no! So this is a horrible, horrible legal take
because admittedly, there are two different definitions
of a public company.
One is a public company that's owned by the government.
The First Amendment applies to the government.
And if you are the government,
then the First Amendment applies.
Then second, a publicly-traded company is one
that just has stock that you can purchase on an exchange.
It doesn't mean that they are owned
or operated by the government.
And if you are a publicly-traded private company,
the First Amendment does not apply to you.