Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. What could the US Federal Government do instead, assuming it is important to consider such platforms as per their effects on the population?

If China sold candies that contained poison and marketed them to Us children, it would be easy, since the FDA prohibits this. If the FDA didn't exist, perhaps poisoned candy sales would prompt the creation of such a regulatory body.

So I guess I oppose the ban while recognizing the danger, and suggest we consider regulating digital goods in the same manner as consumable foods; if provable harmful effects are evident then that is grounds for a ban of a product on the basis of health protection.

The authors Ashley Gorski and Patrick Toomey seem to think that the rule of law and advocating for consistent ruling on constitutionality will have an effect.

If I’ve learned anything about how the Supreme Court works, it’s that this is a political calculation, not a legal one. The outcomes are decided first, and then jurisprudence is employed to substantiate them — not the other way around.

TikTok is NOT being banned. TikTok can continue unmodified if it transfers ownership to anyone outside China.

Social media platforms hosted in the USA are voluntarily bending to the President's will.

Social media platforms hosted outside the USA are going to be banned, because national security.

People may not realize or acknowledge it, but we are in the very last days of "free speech" on the internet.

All of these posts keep talking about banning TikTok... The law doesn't ban TikTok. It bans its continued operation in the U.S. under the ownership of a foreign adversary.

The law:

> It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of ) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following: ...

In order to take this seriously as speech infringement, you'd have to define software as speech. Precedent holds that the expressive part (source code) is speech, but that the functional part that operates is not speech. This law bans the software function.

Banning citizens from using the app seems unconstitutional, but is preventing the the company ByteDance to operate inside the US unconstitutional? Those two seems like two completely different questions even if the outcome is similar.

From a EU perspective, regulating what companies do is not in conflict at all with human rights. The privilege to operate a company, provide advertisement, sell products and services, to use the local economy, all that is regulated. It should also be mentioned that companies generally tend to receive some benefits that individual persons do not, especially when it comes to taxes, risk taking, and debt. Companies can own and operate things which private person can't. The distinction between the rights, responsibilities and privileges that a private person has compared to a commercial company are fairly major.

Why is the ACLU talking like TikTok is a US citizen which free speech rights are being infringed?

Huawei and several other companies have faced this. Several American companies face this in China. Its not unprecedented. Are you suggesting its unconstitutional because freedom of expression is being curbed? Thats not true, those creators have other platforms to post their content.

AppStore should have had some review mechanisms from the beginning. When an app reaches a certain scale, it should be required to ensure that its data centers are supervised by government technical personnel and accessible to the government. This approach is similar to China's, because data is valuable—it can feed algorithms, making them more powerful and making the "candy" for kids even more addictive. The platforms where data resides can also do many things; just look at what Elon did on X regarding the election. Otherwise, it's like shooting oneself in the foot. By the way, I found a ridiculous website https://www.tiktok-alternatives.com/ Zack is just too funny.

From the ACLU amicus brief (linked in the article)

> Although the D.C. Circuit ostensibly applied strict scrutiny in upholding the ban, it subjected the government’s assertions to little genuine scrutiny in the end

Does the author understand checks-and-balances? The DC Circuit found that Congress did a lot to try to investigate and come to an agreement with Bytedance that would resolve their concerns. After all that, it's Congress' power to decide what to do, not the courts. They are not just allowed to second-guess congress. They can only look at the "how" of the law, the "why" is largely non-justiciable. And if the goal is to stop CCP speech, through the TikTok algo, then there's really nothing to do other than ban TikTok.

Personally I think the ban is xenophobic and we should instead regulate ALL of these apps (X, Meta...) but it is legal

I think the times have changed. The Great Powers of the world are becoming more hostile to each other yet we continue to operate the naive way. We play by the rules but our rivals have no rules. This makes us weak, exploitable and ineffective.

As such, I support the ban, for the sake of doing something. I admit it's not ideal but we live in a messy and tense world. User's speech isn't really taken away, just use another dopamine feed. Better yet: use none.

You'll find it's in particular activists protesting this move.

I wonder how long until public discourse is willing to acknowledge that social media is not just a fun little way to stay in touch with old friends, but a straight up tool of surveillance and influence. For those that agree, do you think governments should do nothing? For those not convinced, what more evidence do you need?

Baking tik tok isn't a first amendment issue. As much of an advocate for free speech and the first amendment, I think Congress has the right to regulate trade and prevent a foreign company from doing business on American soil.

A foreign citizen or foreign corporation does not have first amendment rights so this is constitutional. However they should not ban TikTok if they want to hold any moral high ground over China.

> If the Supreme Court allows the government to shut down an entire platform on such a flimsy evidentiary record, it would set a disturbing precedent for future government restrictions on online speech.

Something something PATRIOT Act.

I will say: Tiktok is very popular in many countries other than America. Forcing a company to sell its entire business just to continue operations in one country seems flawed, even if the US constitutes a major share.

The Supreme Court is bought and paid for by the group that wants to <s>ban</s> likely take over. So, regardless of what your thoughts on TikTok are, it's mostly all irrelevant.

The word around socials seems to be that users are just moving to Rednote, another Chinese social media app - doesn't that just defeat the purpose of this and end up with a cat and mouse game?

How does banning a platform reduce free speech? Which topics can you only discuss on TikTok and not elsewhere?

I just wish they wouldn't stop with tik tok. Facebook, twitter and all the rest present the same danger.

The ACLU has really lost its way

You can still access it through the mobile site, no?

We are getting Lemonade 8 app for US TikTok users to continue.

TikTok is not being banned. TikTok is being required to sell to a non-Chinese stakeholder in order to mitigate the national security threat of it being indirectly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

These are not the same thing, and it's depressing how vulnerable people seem to be to propaganda anymore. No one can even read a legal brief or a law.

Another bad take by the nazi defenders over at the ACLU. If the same people behind tiktok tried to buy the Washington Post or CNN they would be blocked by existing laws prohibiting foreign adversaries from controlling American media companies, but somehow its fine if its social media? For better or worse social media is where a huge amount of people get their news these days, and unless we want Putin to run the NYT we need laws in place to stop foreign billionaires from filling the discourse with Russian/Chinese/Saudi propaganda (more than they already do).

First, let me preface that I despise TikTok and I think it is mostly garbage content-wise, however this proposal is simply un-American. Concerns about data privacy and foreign influence are legit, but banning an entire communication platform used by 170 million Americans based on hypothetical threats goes against core First Amendment principles especially considering the government's inability to provide concrete evidence of harm or to explain why less restrictive measures wouldn't suffice. If we allow platforms to be banned based on their parent company's nationality rather than actual demonstrated threats, what is next?

We all know it's just a way for Musk and others to get a really popular social media for cheap. This ban has nothing to do with anything else than that.