Comment by beezlebroxxxxxx
12 hours ago
> But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA.
> Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA.
That was explicitly brought up in oral arguments by the court, and the response by the US Gov was: "The act is written to be content neutral."
The court's opinion explains that they agree the law is "appropriately tailored" to remain content neutral. Whether it's "enemy propaganda" or not is, in their view, irrelevant to the application of the law. TikTok can exist in America, using TikTok is not banned, the owner just can't be a deemed "foreign adversary", which there is a history of enforcement (to some degree).
Like such cannot be enforced for example against foreign radio stations or print publications.
Then how do court justify that it stands in the case of an app.
As I understand, a print publication can't have a business entity in the US if it's owned by a foreign adversary. Given that, an American could still travel to the foreign country themselves and bring an issue back. That would be similar to side loading apps.
In order to comply with the law, Apple and Google cannot distribute the app because it is deemed to be unlawfully owned by a foreign adversary; that's the ban. But anyone who wants to get it through other means can still do so. Presuming that's how it works, it doesn't seem to be logically different from radio/print media.
Soviet Life Magazine for example was printed and sold in the US by the Soviet Embassy.
6 replies →
> Like such cannot be enforced for example against foreign radio stations or print publications.
If the law and acts calling for their divestiture were deemed "content neutral" then they could. But an app, with algorithmic profiling, delivery, and data capture, for the purposes of modeling and influence, is not the same as a radio station or a publication, so it would probably not be easy or even possible to the SC's standards to write a content neutral law in that way. But they have deemed that with apps like TikTok, when done so carefully, it is possible and divestiture can be enforced neutral of content.
We don't need to stick our head in the sand and act like TikTok is the same as a print publication.
The SC's decision, and Gorsuch's opinion in particular, is carefully written to not fundamentally rewrite the First Amendment, I'd urge you to read it.