TikTok sues U.S. government, says ban violates First Amendment
TikTok sues U.S. government, says ban violates First Amendment
The company argues that invoking national security concerns is not a sufficient reason for restricting free speech.
I think it's pretty clear the ban will be overturned. Congress just attached it to Ukraine aid because it was popular enough and they could ram Ukraine and Israel aid thru. The Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that Chinese propaganda is protected speech 8-0, in the middle of the red scare. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General
If they want to truly go after tiktok we're gonna need data privacy bills and oversight that affects ALL social media platforms. Congress isn't serious about fixing issues. This isn't a serious ban. They just want sound bytes to play back home.
You're mostly right, but I do not trust this court to consider precedent, or even the law
If they want to truly go after tiktok we’re gonna need data privacy bills and oversight that affects ALL social media platforms.
You mean like the GDPR? Oh the US can absolutely not have that. Big Brother will have a fit!
For about 2 hours I thought the TikTok ban would bring a similar thing to GDPR to the US. Then I stopped, thought about it and realized it was bullshit. I just want digital rights
The speech is protected, but foreign influence is not.
The US has a very long history of preventing and restricting foreign control of national media. That said, this has traditionally been applied to television and radio, not new media.
The thought being, people can say whatever they want, but if a foreign adversary has control over the flow of key information channels, that is a national security risk.
Lamont v Postmaster General was decided the way it was because it required Dr. Lamont to make a positive and OFFICIAL act in order to receive something through a U.S. Government service.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act requires no official (meaning related to Government) act on the part of the user. A secondary, but still important, consideration for SCOTUS in that case was that the U.S. Mail was an official Government body, that also doesn't apply.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act may still be struck down but Lamont v Postmaster General is IMO a poor case to use for comparison.
It was a unanimous vote (50-0) in the House Commerce Committee, approved independent of other bills. They very likely attached it to the aid package to shield Congress from constituent blowback. They won’t be walking this back.
I mean, the House did also recently pass a comprehensive data privacy act
We'll see what happens. I don't think the ban has anything to do with Chinese propaganda and everything to do with the US government wanting a backdoor to read everyone's private communications. Maybe they'll force this into a FISA court under the guise of "national security" in order to get a win after a secret trial.
Huh. Well, that's an interesting turn of events.
I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but the basic premise seems solid. US has that whole 'corporations are people' shtick going on, and... well, guess now it's time for that ruling to become inconvenient for the government.
Exactly. I don't care about tiktok (I'm more concerned with the parts of this legislation) but this'll be interesting. The bad news is that if tiktok wins this, other corporations will definitely start up with some new shenanigans
It won't happen, but imagine how satisfying it would be if TikTok was the domino that led to Citizens United being overturned
Although it would be funnier if it went the other direction and corporate personhood was so fundamental that the 14th amendment applied to them meaning they couldn't be owned by shareholders as that would be slavery.
I mean, I don't know if I would say "interesting turn of events" per se. This was entirely expected, to the point where every major news outlet was reporting on the day the ban was announced that TikTok was likely to contest it in court.
I don’t think the contesting it in court part is what surprised anyone.
I mean, I’m not a lawyer, but the basic premise seems solid. US has that whole ‘corporations are people’ shtick going on
Sure, and the US Government is quite able to ban people from the country as well.
Not really, this was always coming. Any time new regulations effect a corporation, they sue. Sometimes it's just to establish a more reasonable timeframe to make the necessary changes to stay in regulation, sometimes it's to upturn the entire law. This was pretty much always Step 2. What's real interesting is TikTok's refusal to sell, which tells me that they think they have a very solid court case.
What’s real interesting is TikTok’s refusal to sell, which tells me that they think they have a very solid court case.
they're stuck between a rock & hard place and suing is the only path left open to them
the rock): the chinese government has laws similar to the united states that will block a sale of any algorithm to a foreign enemy.
the hard place): bytedance uses the same algorithm in all of their social media companies and american tiktok is a relatively small slice of their revenue pie so it doesn't make business sense to give their secret recipe to a competitor
Corporations are only people when it comes to rights they can abuse.
If TikTok winning this means we treat corporations more like people, does that mean we can start charging them with murder and suing them when they infringe on our rights?
I'm ready to see Texas execute a few corporations.
It’s interesting because technically the content on TikTok is the speech of the users and TikTok is just processing it. It’s not actually their “speech”. Does that mean anything? Are they considered press? Same thing. It’s the content of the users.
But freedom of speech is an US right, how does banning a Chinese company even if they are a person violate free speech? They would be a Chinese citizen with the rights given in their country so no free speech. Just don't get the play they are trying to make here.
They are legally based in the Caymans, if rights don't apply to them because of it then that applies to all the multinational companies (Nestle etc)
TikTok doesn't engage in speech at all. TikTok is s platform on which people engage in speech. Those people include Americans.
So TikTok being legally considered a person or not, having rights or not and so on is irrelevant, since TikTok's nominal rights aren't being violated in the first place. The rights of the Anerican people are the ones that would be violated - they are the ones whose freedom of speech would be restricted.
IANAL but I presume that's the argument they're using - that when they say that it's a violation of the first amendment, what they mean is not that it violates their supposed freedom of speech, but that it violates our inalienable freedom of speech (as it in fact, and obviously, does).
There's compelling arguments either way. On one hand, this is a pretty naked attempt to hit at China and control the flow of the US government's desired information.
On the other hand, the legislation isn't technically a ban, but a forced divestment of a corporate asset. The power of the government to force the breakup, dissolution, or divestment of corporate entities is the basis of US antitrust law, and is well established.
It's an interesting case.
The power of the government to force the breakup, dissolution, or divestment of corporate entities is the basis of US antitrust law, and is well established.
Unless of course the monopoly holder is an american corporation. Then it’s a good monopoly. We’re living in the next gilded age simply because people “forgot” monopolies are bad and those laws remain unused against giants like google, amazon, meta and many many more.
They literally said they want tiktok gone cz they can't control the narrative: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/07/israel-al-jazeera-us-tiktok-ban
I imagine that our (U.S.) government's case resides primarily on the premise that the state may exercise the ability to force divestment of a company with foreign ownership.
These powers are granted by the National Defense Authorization Act which seeks to prevent imminent national and private security vulnerabilities being exploited by foreign adversaries and agents; the actors here would be specifically the CCP and their intelligence and military apparatus' shell companies and PMCs.
The precedents set by U.S. Anti-Trust laws support their position, but the primary argument in the state's defense are the powers granted by the NDAA.
I'm only speculating.
On the other hand, the legislation isn’t technically a ban, but a forced divestment of a corporate asset.
this reminds me of how democrats marketed don't ask/don't tell as a "compromise" when in reality military policy already mandated that any and all hints of "non-hetero-ness" on service members must be investigated and dishonorably discharged if they were discovered to be lgbt.
like don't ask / don't tell, the forced divestment is true, but it's not the reason and the devil is hidden in the details.
in case you don't already know: force divestment isn't a real option because 1) the american government already knows that the chinese government block it and 2) bytedance uses the same algorithm across all of their social media companies so giving away the secret sauce to a competitor is a bad idea when tiktok in the united states makes a relatively small portion of bytedance's revenue.
Surely Tiktok will also be suing the Chinese government to be unbanned there as well, right guys?
We should not throw out our rights, just because China doesn't have those same rights.
China should be the example of a bad way to monitor the internet, not the end goal.
If Tiktok wasn't caught censoring people's posts for various reasons, we could consider it a free speech platform, but as it stands, it's an advertisement platform. We've already lost better forms of speech on the internet. I have no horse in this particular race.
Its just a ploy to avoid any sort of reasonable privacy regulation. Tiktok doesn't do anything that facebook, reddit, instagram, tumbler, twitter etc don't do.
Ya wanna know the best way the US can fight propaganda? Take steps to enact real change in the current quality of life for the middle/lower class here. When people aren't fighting to live, it is easier to overlook the current governmental issues. Not saying that complacency is what people should be fighting for, but it is legitimately the best way for the government to fight foreign adversary's propaganda.
That won't fight propaganda, because propaganda doesn't have to have any basis in reality. It can be nothing but straw men and Potemkin villages. You can literally lie, and it's going to take far, far more effort to debunk the lie than it would be to simply prevent the lie from propagating in the first place.
The believability of that lie is tipped by the reality we live in. I could say, "if we had communism, the clouds would be made of cotton candy." Nobody would believe me. If I said, "I see you are having major housing issues. look at _____, they don't have housing issues, so why don't you adopt their political ideology?" The US govt actively avoiding improving living conditions opens up tons of those opportunities.
I'm going to sue the CCP because they banned my psyops platform.
...because corporations are people? Blegh.
wouldn't it be funny if tiktok ended up overturning citizens united. infinitesimally small chance of it happening, but it would be fucking hilarious.
Why would it? The US is well able to ban flesh and blood people from the country so the idea that "Corporations are people" fits perfectly well with the ban. In fact it's entirely consistent behavior.
Not the hero we needed, but the one we deserved
With the way this timeline is shaping up… it wouldn't surprise me anymore.
"For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide."
I'm shocked I made it to the 3rd Paragraph before I ran into the first set of lies.
Is the lie that it's not the first time?
Lie 1 - It's not about a "single" platform but any owned and operated by a list of "Adversary" nations.
Lie 2 - It's not permanent. The ban, such as it, can be lifted and the legislation defines how.
Lie 3 - It doesn't bar Americans from participating.
Lie 4 - TikTok is in no way a "Unique Community"
Some of you may question my assertions but before you do I encourage you to read the legislation that was actually enacted.
The US banning apps is bad precedent period. Think of the damage [Your political nemesis’ party] could do if this was allowed
Js
If the CCCP refuses to divest, then thats their choice. The ban only goes into effect if they refuse.
The company hasnt sued the CCCP in China to make it sell its stake, I assume.
You realize that 'CCCP' is the Russian initialism for the USSR?
Dammit, lol
CCP****
I thought it was the Combined Community Codec Pack - cousin to K-Lite.
The CCP only owns around 1 percent of ByteDance with majority ownership belonging to multinational investment groups (Carlyle, Susquehanna, etc); however the CCP regulates the sale of source code so it'd be hard to get approval.
The most important part is that ByteDance actually doesn't make most of its money in the US so they'd rather shut down TikTok than let the Americans have their algorithm
That sounds like extortion and coercion not some sound legal footing.