An advertising ban ahead of an election feels like a logical solution, or at least a simple-to-understand one. People would try and circumvent it still but the burden would be on the ad vendors to not be liable for a violation.

And if they don't want to risk liability, they always have the option to not show any ads to the relevant population ahead of an election.

The difference is that the U.S. has this pesky thing called the First Amendment that makes restricting political speech difficult.

Why do Americans always think that the freedom of speech is a exclusively American thing? All liberal democracies have similar concepts, they do put different limits on it (just like the US puts limits)

It’s the American exceptionalism, the belief that the US is unique in how much freedom its citizens have. The land of the free. In reality, citizens in other democracies have as much or more freedom.

America has far fewer limits on freedom of speech than other democracies.

Hate speech law in the US is practically nonexistent. Libel is much more difficult case to argue. Restrictions on political speech are widely held to be unconstitutional.

Compare that with other democracies, such as the UK, Germany or India, and I think you'll find that the US does have significantly more freedom of speech than other democratic nations.

Nope, it’s just that Americans are sufficiently politically homogenous that they don’t try to say the forbidden things.

Try, for example, to blog that your company should not trade with Israel whilst tendering for a federal contract.

(Just an example: I don’t have a dog in the actual fight).

But don't forget, money is speech, and corporations are people. All of which is absolutely not in the first amendment.

The right to freely associate + the right to speak + the right to printed speech = the right to collaborate on speech

i.e., there is free speech for groups as well as individuals

Saying there's right to free speech for groups unless someone gets paid is a little silly and hard to enforce. Hence our current situation.

From another perspective, there is obviously "freedom of the press" but the Constitution does not say who is allowed to own a press and it doesn't say you have to personally own a press to make use of it. In fact, it would probably be problematic if you weren't allowed to hire a press if you had something you wanted to say.

For the same reason groups and corporations don't have voting rights, they shouldn't be able to monopolize speech by drowning out all others.

Additionally, money is not speech. We disallow politicians directly giving people money to vote for them - why would we do that, since the politicians trade is in speech, he's simply delivering stump speech in the form of a $100 bill to his potential constituents.

Money is not speech, but speaking publicly on a scale larger than a literal soap box on a street corner has never been free. Banning spending money to express oneself is banning expression just like banning paying for raw milk is banning raw milk.

And groups do have voting rights. That's how Congress works. The U.S. is a republic.

Are you saying congress voting on legislation is akin to a corporation voting on members of Congress?

I'm saying that republics are voting as groups. By definition.

Not any arbitrary group gets to directly vote, no. But different groups do have rights: races, religions, genders, ethnicities, and, yes, groups of people with common values and interests.

Why is it that free speech extends to organizations? I'm all for free speech but outside of individuals and nonprofits I'm struggling to think of good reason it should extend to corporate entities.

Nonprofits are corporate entities too.

The Citizens United case, the most recent Supreme Court case striking down restrictions on political speech, was about a nonprofit organization opposed to Hillary Clinton. The government tried to shut down their “documentary” film about Hillary.

I can’t for the life of me figure it out.

Also remember that nonprofits, labor unions, and community groups are corporations too.

Corporate speech is just "speech for groups of people". Those groups may be for-profit corporations, or they may be nonprofit.