That corporations do so with money—and not to “speak” but to bulldoze the terrain of ideas for their own bottom lines—has upended many of the foundational assumptions behind free expression. The grant to corporations of broad free speech protections has de facto prioritized profits over the rights of people to speak and be informed. A comprehensive 2015 study found that, in the US, “corporations have increasingly displaced individuals as direct beneficiaries” of free-speech rulings.153
