The third option is corporate responsibility. In short, the board is directly responsible for the actions of the company, because the company doesn’t have any rights, but instead shares the rights of the board of directors. The company itself has only two “rights,” that of limited liability, and that of being a legal party to contracts. Anything else, including free speech, is down to the board or employees directly responsible.
These are just possibilities, but it’s certainly something that needs to be looked at now, because companies are only getting bigger, and already the 5 biggest companies each have annual revenues bigger than the GDP of all but the top 35 countries (by IMF figures), while the biggest, Wal-Mart, would slot in at number 25, just ahead of Norway, and behind Taiwan at $421 billion/year.
While it might seem an ‘anti-corporate’ stance, the idea of corporations being “people” is not one that should be encouraged. Corporations were created to provide limited liability, and to be a single entity for contract law, nothing more. Ultimately, it comes to the following point: Slavery was about treating people as property, Corporate Personhood is about treating property as a person.
Trying to create artificial people, giving businesses advantages and no disadvantages, means they have disproportionate powers, and the bigger the company, the more power it has, until it’s too big to fail, then we just keep bailing things out, and buckling under the influence. How is that in any way right?
Of course, there is always the Texas standard, mentioned earlier, and not believe Corporate Persons exist until Texas executes one.
Part 2 — Privacy
“Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power
danah boyd
Everyone’s abuzz with the “nymwars,” mostly in response to Google Plus’ decision to enforce its “real names” policy. At first, Google Plus went on a deleting spree, killing off accounts that violated its policy. When the community reacted with outrage, Google Plus leaders tried to calm the anger by detailing their “new and improved” mechanism to enforce “real names” (without killing off accounts). This only sparked increased discussion about the value of pseudonymity. Dozens of blog posts have popped up with people expressing their support for pseudonymity and explaining their reasons. One of the posts, by Kirrily “Skud” Robert included a list of explanations that came from people she polled, including:
— “I am a high school teacher, privacy is of the utmost importance.”
— “I have used this name/account in a work context, my entire family knows this name and my friends know this name. It enables me to participate online without being subjected to harassment that at one point in time lead to my employer having to change their number so that calls could get through.”
— “I do not feel safe using my real name online as I have had people track me down from my online presence and had coworkers invade my private life.”
— “I’ve been stalked. I’m a rape survivor. I am a government employee that is prohibited from using my IRL.”
— “As a former victim of stalking that impacted my family, I’ve used [my nickname] online for about 7 years.”
— “[This name] is a pseudonym I use to protect myself. My web site can be rather controversial and it has been used against me once.”
— “I started using [this name] to have at least a little layer of anonymity between me and people who act inappropriately/criminally. I think the “real names” policy hurts women in particular.
— “I enjoy being part of a global and open conversation, but I don’t wish for my opinions to offend conservative and religious people I know or am related to. Also I don’t want my husband’s Government career impacted by his opinionated wife, or for his staff to feel in any way uncomfortable because of my views.”
— “I have privacy concerns for being stalked in the past. I’m not going to change my name for a Google Plus page. The price I might pay isn’t worth it.”
— “We get death threats at the blog, so while I’m not all that concerned with, you know, sane people finding me. I just don’t overly share information and use a pen name.”
— “This identity was used to protect my real identity as I am gay and my family live in a small village where if it were openly known that their son was gay they would have problems.”
— “I go by a pseudonym for safety reasons. Being female, I am wary of internet harassment.”
You’ll notice a theme here…
Another site has popped up called “My Name Is Me” where people vocalize their support for pseudonyms. What’s most striking is the list of people who are affected by “real names” policies, including abuse survivors, activists, LGBT people, women, and young people.
Over and over again, people keep pointing to Facebook as an example where “real names” policies work. This makes me laugh hysterically. One of the things that became patently clear to me in my fieldwork is that countless teens who signed up to Facebook late into the game chose to use pseudonyms or nicknames. What’s even more noticeable in my data is that an extremely high percentage of people of color used pseudonyms as compared to the white teens that I interviewed. Of course, this would make sense...
The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people. These ideas and issues aren’t new (and I’ve even talked about this before), but what is new is that marginalized people are banding together and speaking out loudly. And thank goodness.
What’s funny to me is that people also don’t seem to understand the history of Facebook’s “real names” culture. When early adopters (first the elite college students…) embraced Facebook, it was a trusted community. They gave the name that they used in the context of college or high school or the corporation that they were a part of. They used the name that fit into the network that they joined Facebook with. The names they used weren’t necessarily their legal names; plenty of people chose Bill instead of William. But they were, for all intents and purposes, “real.” As the site grew larger, people had to grapple with new crowds being present and discomfort emerged over the norms. But the norms were set and people kept signing up and giving the name that they were most commonly known by. By the time celebrities kicked in, Facebook wasn’t demanding that Lady Gaga call herself Stefani Germanotta, but of course, she had a “fan page” and was separate in the eyes of the crowd. Meanwhile, what many folks failed to notice is that countless black and Latino youth signed up to Facebook using handles. Most people don’t notice what black and Latino youth do online. Likewise, people from outside of the US started signing up to Facebook and using alternate names. Again, no one noticed because names transliterated from Arabic or Malaysian or containing phrases in Portuguese weren’t particularly visible to the real name enforcers. Real names are by no means universal on Facebook, but it’s the importance of real names is a myth that Facebook likes to shill out. And, for the most part, privileged white Americans use their real name on Facebook. So it “looks” right.