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Comment by imgabe

6 hours ago

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...

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