Comment by joshfee 2 months ago
I think the easiest answer to follow for "why is this not prevented by free speech protection" is "the fact that petitioners “cannot avoid or mitigate” the effects of the Act by altering their speech." (page 10 of this ruling, but is a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Broadcasting_System,_In...)
If you followed the politics of the TikTok ban, it was absolutely about the content of the network.
US Congresspeople and Senators were angry that TikTok would not censor or de-emphasize pro-Palestinian / anti-Israeli content, whereas Facebook much more actively de-boosted that kind of content. All previous attempts to ban TikTok failed to gain traction, until the Gaza war began, and that issue convinced many politicians in the US to back a ban.
I know this was a common talking point but I don't really agree it is a valid reason. It's probably just demographic and algorithmic differences that pro-Palestine content is more common on TikTok.
What would be interesting though - on all platforms, what's the organic percentage of the different view points, and whats the percentage that ends up being shown to people. I think that's what people are worried about being quietly manipulated. So even a small amount of people with some extreme view point would get promoted because China wants it, but since it's real content, it's not really obvious that it's being pushed.
I'm totally pro-TikTok btw I just don't really buy the idea that it was about this specific content.
right you really have to be not paying attention or be living in an alternative facts world. For instance look on X, there are literally thousands of paid for foreign propaganda bots trying to inject hatred and division in the USA and they have free reign and the government is not trying to stop them after Musk told them "no". Soon it starts happening to facebook, except there is no "paid" bluecheck account, the result will be the same. TikTok is a clear and present attempt by a centralized foreign advesary to do the same thing, but they will be treated differently because it's the enemy from without and not owned by an American company.
> There is a law that only U.S. citizens can own TV stations.
The communications act did not ban already-existing networks, and it did not ban specific providers. The tiktok ban is targeted specifically against one social media that the government does not like[1], with a thin veneer of "security concern" that people might specifically choose to share their contact list and that one of those contacts may be in a sensitive position.
[1] I don't even really think it's about the government not liking it! They thought they could get cheap support by drumming up anti-chinese sentiment and they ran with it. It's the most pathetic kind of politicking.
> tiktok ban is targeted specifically against one social media that the government does not like
no, it's about the ownership and control of the social media network by a foreign country (that is adversarial to the US)
the other major social networks are all US companies
Simple answer. A chinese owned company has no such rights or protections. Free speech does not apply. The law also does not censor content (so no free speech violation anyway). The law simply bans the distribution of the app on marketplaces stores for reasons stated (national security). Big difference.
> Simple answer. A chinese owned company has no such rights or protections. Free speech does not apply.
The Constitution does not place limits on which people are protected by it (you don't have to be a citizen for it to apply as the founders were looking to limit the powers of their government not their citizens). And with the expansion of those protections to corporations through Citizens United, I'd be surprised if a court found that `company + foreign != person + foreign` when they've decided `company == person`. (Well not surprised by this Court.)
> The law also does not censor content (so no free speech violation anyway). The law simply bans the distribution of the app on marketplaces stores for reasons stated (national security). Big difference.
The rest of your comment still stands right in my eyes. National Security has often been used as a means to bypass many things enshrined by the Constitution.
The court has never determined that corporations are people, that’s a completely unfounded meme.
What they did find was that (real, human) people have certain rights that they are able to exercise by organizing into corporations.
Eh? Unless otherwise specified, corporations satisfy the definition of a person across all federal laws per 1 USC §1, which reads: "the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals"
That 1 USC §1 is not a typo: this copy appears in the first section of the first title of US code, on disambiguating common terms used in law.
Totally beside the point. Verbatim from Citizens United:
> The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not “natural persons.”
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/
SCOTUS held that coorporations (and more broadly "associations of people") have the same rights to free speech that any individual does.
Ugh. CU doesn’t state that corporations are people. They can’t vote or own guns or get married or divorced. They can’t be legal guardians to children or pay income tax. They aren’t entitled to Social Security benefits and their coverage for health insurance may be denied for preexisting conditions. What CU said is that collectively people can use company resources to exercise their right to free speech and established the concept of super PACs.
This isn’t to say that it was the right decision (certainly seems to have done some very bad things). But “corporations are people” is a lay person talking point, not an actual legal doctrine. Therefore you can’t just apply it to other cases because there is nothing to apply.
You are correct that free speech isn’t limited by your citizenship status.
The EFF disagrees.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supre...
> The law simply bans the distribution of the app on marketplaces stores for reasons stated (national security).
This is red alert talk. We need to make damned sure we know exactly what we're asking for here and that we're not giving up more than we mean to.
This is affecting the free speech rights of US citizens directly. You might wish it was as simple as you try to portray it, but it clearly isn’t
This is not affecting US citizens' legal free speech rights. You have the right to say what you want; you don't have the right to say it on a specific platform. You had free speech without TikTok before it existed, and you'll have the same amount of free speech if it does not exist again.
This is exactly the simplistic framing the person you replied to is talking about. So let's take an absurd extreme. The government designates a 1x1 mile "free speech zone" in the middle of Wyoming and says you're not allowed to speak anywhere else. You have the same amount of free speech as you did before, right?
Another extreme, let's say the government declared that you may speak freely but only by filling out a web form routed to Dave. Great guy. I mean they haven't technically taken away your right to speak? And someone will hear what you say.
Both of these would he flagrant violations of 1A as I'm sure you'd agree. But what this means is that implicit to 1A the government has limits on how many places it can deny you speech and limits on how much they can deny you an audience. And you can't hide behind the "well it's just divestiture not a ban" because the courts aren't blind to POSIWID.
So the more nuanced question is does banning TikTok meaningfully affect the ability of Americans to speak. And I think because of how large they are you could answer yes to this question. Americans know exactly what they're signing up for with their TT accounts and want to post there. TikTok but owned by an American would be legal so the platform itself isn't the issue. And saying TT can't operate in the US and actively preventing Americans from accessing it are two very different actions.
Cool, so is all US companies in all other countries around the world then, no protections. All countries in the world, USA just showed it is perfectly fine to steal a foreign companies' asset. Let's do that to all USA companies, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Boeing, Qualcomn, Intel, all of them. U know how rich you will be if you just got a piece of them? U know you could end homelessness, poverty, balance trade, stabilize your currency, elevate tax revenues, get free education and health care for your citizens, provide great jobs if you just got a piece of USA companies? Now you can! All of them can be Indian, Germany, France, UK, Poland, Brazilian, Mexican, Canadian, Kenyan, Egyptian companies. Everyone gets a piece, everyone gets them equally, everyone will benefit and be happy!
I get this argument, and obviously it's not stopping people from uploading the same content other places. But isn't there (or shouldn't there be) something about not banning what people can consume? Like could the US ban aljazeera? Or banning foreign books?! And still TikTok is different, because it's about the potential for quietly manipulating or curating what is seen, even if that content is produced domestically... And even if people can use other apps, there's still a community and subcultures that are being dismantled.
This is a limitation on foreign control of TikTok, not a limitation on speech. TikTok can stay in the us market if it eliminates the foreign control
There is limitation of foreign control of all foreign companies in all countries. USA companies can stay in the world markets if it sells itself to owners of that country. All USA companies, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Boeing, Qualcomn, Intel, all of them, can be Indian, Germany, France, UK, Poland, Brazilian, Mexican, Canadian, Kenyan, Egyptian companies.
Congress is explicitly empowered in the Constitution to regulate foreign trade. Free speech is not relevant.
Free speech is relevant if issues of free speech are involved, which they are here.
There are no issues of speech. Nobody’s speech is restricted in any way. China simply isn’t allowed to sell a social media app in the US. This is just an import control like if we decided not to import lemons from Brazil or anything else.
What specific speech do you think is no longer allowed?
> Nobody’s speech is restricted in any way.
Justice Sotomayor disagrees with you [1]:
> Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. She stressed that she saw “no reason to assume without deciding that the Act implicates the First Amendment because our precedent leaves no doubt that it does.”
The rest of the justices sidestepped the question by assuming the First Amendment was implicated for the sake of argument.
[1]: https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/supreme-court-upholds-tik...
The freedom to speak without having to be on camera. TikTok made it so millions of people could express themselves with filters and AI voices without having to be on camera. Or could dance along with a crowd asynchronously. There are so many more class of expression that if they were known people would advocate for their protection. To transplant a species to a new environment is to modify an ecosystem. At scale, it means silencing at least 15% of population with no credible alternative, no apparent migration path.
Limits on how you can speak are absolutely limits on speech. It's called burdening. The government must demonstrate a reason to burden a right. It is held to various levels of scrutiny depending on the ways it is burdening.
I think it is very obvious why removing the most-used social media from 170 million americans would be burdensome. SCOTUS disagrees.
> What specific speech do you think is no longer allowed?
The TikTok ban was specifically prompted by Congresspeople being upset about pro-Palestinian / anti-Israeli speech on the platform.
I really like reading these because they come with annotations: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-9-1/ALD...
Also, more directly for those in the back, the actual first amendment:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The first amendment doesn't guarantee the speaker a venue for their speech. You're still free to say whatever you want to say, so long as it doesn't cross any other laws, in or on whatever other private venues or town squares you so choose.
To turn your question around, rather than spending time defending TikTok I wish people would spend time thinking about the need for actual privacy laws. The kind of laws that outline data governance and the extents to which an individual can expect their individual privacy to be respected. Maybe then we can play less whack a mole with invasive and potentially harmful social software.
Sweet summer child, do you think TikTok would've been banned if it didn't come into focus as a hotbed for pro-Palestinian content?
"The issue in the United States for support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old. And the numbers of young people who think that Hamas' massacre was justified is shockingly and terrifyingly odd. And so we really have a TikTok problem."
"[TikTok] is like Al Jazeera on steroids."
- Jonathan Gleenblat, ADL.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelCrimes/comments/1i3vwll/we_ha...
Something very appalling has just taken place in the USA. Old people have muzzled the free speech of young people. Americans spend more hours on TikTok than on television (but it mostly skews to young people), and now it's been taken away.
If TikTok were sold to an American company, as the new law demands, why would that change anything about the amount of pro-Palestinian content? Just because the ADL said they don't like TikTok does not mean that's the motivation for the bill. You're still allowed to criticize Israel as much as you were a decade ago (which is to say, less than you're allowed to criticize the US, for some reason ;) but still).
Because a sale is and has always been impossible since it would be an unacceptable embarrassment for China in the current climate. The divestiture is just a way to make the ban pass muster.
Which big US social media company operates without some form of involvement with the ADL?
This isn't a conspiracy, the ADL openly admits and is proud of their involvement in censorship.
Here they are bragging about their role in youtube censorship:
https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-applauds-goo...
Google search results censorship:
https://www.adl.org/resources/news/can-google-search-be-used...
X may be the one exception, though I note that the "advertiser boycott" was ended when Musk made trips to Israel, was photographed next Netanyahu's atrocity propaganda prop pieces, next to Ben Shapiro, etc.
Musk first posted an antisemitic tweet, which caused a minor scandal. Then, to atone for that, he traveled to Israel, met with Netanyahu, and had Twitter begin boosting pro-Israeli content.
Musk went from antisemite to Israel fan in the course of just a few days. This actually isn't so surprising, though. There are many people who are both antisemitic and pro-Israel (see basically every far-right party in Europe, for example).
TikTok was specifically banned because of one main reason. When it was being discussed in congress, they told their users to complain to their congresspeople, and posted their congresspersons number. Then when a bunch of unhinged teens called threatening to kill themselves, congress members rightfully went "What the fuck" and the bill gained enormous support
Tik tok was banned because it tried to use children to start a political movement. Unfortunately for them children can not vote so the movement did nothing other than scare adults.
Eh, I don't really agree with roncesvalles, but I think this is an inherently highly political topic. Should HN just be deleting the entire thread?
think about it this way: could any law ever stop any publisher from doing anything and still respect the 1st amendemnt?
That's a great point. Hadn't thought about that angle
It's amazing to me how many people are derailed by the free speech argument.
This is about who controls the network, not the content on the network.
There is a law that only U.S. citizens can own TV stations. That's why Murdoch became a US citizen (allowing him to buy Fox). This is in a similar vein.