Comment by joshfee
13 hours 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...)
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.
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.
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Isn’t Alphabet and other tech companies technically Irish owned? Doesn’t Saudi Arabia own a chunk of Twitter? Seemed like the whole ownership ship justification is a cheap canard.
The EFF disagrees.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supre...
The Supreme Court doesn't.
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> 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.
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Only in the same way that you not letting me into your living room affects my free speech inside of your living room, I think.
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
That’s very vague and theoretical
is it? that's what TT's requirements look like
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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?
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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.
Interesting that the reference linked is in reference to must-carry regulation. The tiktok scenario is the opposite though? Must-not-carry that content! I suppose Uncle Sam's sword cuts both ways.
That's a great point. Hadn't thought about that angle
That's not right.
Publishing is speech (Bernstein vs United States).
Unpublishing the app would avoid the effects of the Act.
think about it this way: could any law ever stop any publisher from doing anything and still respect the 1st amendemnt?
The easier answer is ”This is really eating into Meta’s revenues”
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.
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
You hit the nail in the head. US politicians openly admit as much. It is all about controlling the narrative. No sir, cannot have these young people think of Palestinians as human beings. [Blinken blames TikTok and social media for disrupting Israel’s narrative of war in Gaza]
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
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.
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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.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.
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?
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.