4 ms·
Effectively no one treats computer software as simple information. But even if that were the case, you can ban sharing knowledge under obscenity clauses, natio
by true_religion 6y ago
Effectively no one treats computer software as simple information.
But even if that were the case, you can ban sharing knowledge under obscenity clauses, national security clauses, or because it incite violence.
TikTok is being banned as a threat to national security, because having your preeminent communications tool run by a foreign government is inane, unless you are or want to become a colony of that government.
- badrabbit 6y agoWe are not talking about revoking tiktok's business license. If I host the tiktok app on a server and someone downloads it, would we be breaking the law? So then it's not bytedance's activity you are restricting but americans'. You can't yell fire in a crowd but you can yell fire in a crowd if the crowd is consents to it and you can ban the provable intent to cause disruption but you can't ban the word "fire" from being yelled in a crowd. You can ban the company but not the information in the app. Software is information/speech until executed by hardware.
- true_religion 6y agoAre you basically saying that TikTok the app isn’t being banned, but just made hard to find or use?
- badrabbit 6y agoI am saying the business and finance of tiktok can be regulated but not the app itself. Appstores can ban it on their own but a law banning an app from an appstore is equivalent to a law banning a book from a library
- true_religion 6y agoI think you are trying to say that books can’t be banned... but books can legally be banned from libraries. For example historically the US has banned books for being sexually obscene, demeaning to a particular group, or liable to foster communist sympathies.