4 ms·
That argument makes no sense, because we do not want to mirror other countries. Instead, there are substantial arguments about freedom of speech and accountabi
by uniqueuid 4y ago
That argument makes no sense, because we do not want to mirror other countries.
Instead, there are substantial arguments about freedom of speech and accountability. Even though they are messy, they are what we need to apply here because they are a legally binding framework that we built over decades.
By the way, I found Levitski and Ziblatt's book "How Democracies Die" [1] a pretty good treatment of these issues of balancing freedom of expression and democratic resilience.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die
- phpisthebest 4y agoI would make it as a free trade argument. Trade is a 2 way street, if our companies can not compete there, then their companies should not be able to compete here.
- angio 4y agoAmerican companies are allowed to operate in China, as long as they follow local regulation. If TikTok behaviour is concerning (it is, like google/facebook/etc are also concerning), then introduce regulations that protect users' privacy and only then ban TikTok.
- ApolloFortyNine 4y agoThe local regulation is to parter with a Chinese company to operate the service. Giving that company a substantial percentage of revenue.
- phpisthebest 4y agoAs the other person said, Pretty sure they actually cant. Last I knew all China Business had to be majority owned by Chinese Citizens or CCP or both. Americans can invest and have minority ownership in china but can not just "operate" in china like you can in the US as a Foreign company. Infact this was the regulation trump wanted to impose on ByteDance, they needed an American partner to operate in the US, i.e they were in talks with Oracle before Biden reversed the order
- throwaway4aday 4y agoHow does freedom of speech or more specifically the first amendment apply to a foreign owned and operated platform? If you reframed it as something else would it be different in your mind? Say, you had a foreign news service that employed American citizens to read news that was perhaps even sourced in part from American reporters but they editorialized it so that it always favored their side and belittled the American side. Would it be unconstitutional to forbid this entity to operate within the US?
- gsk22 4y agoSounds like you're describing RT America, which operated unimpeded until fiscal realities forced it to withdraw from the country. Was it a scummy network? Yes. Was it protected by 1A? Also yes.
- throwaway4aday 4y agoAh 'fiscal realities' like 'unforeseen business interruption events' right? Gotta smooth things over when you can't just straight up seize assets. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57570044 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57570044
- mountainb 4y agoNot really... you are out in left field here. The fundamental rule of international trade regulation is reciprocity within classes of goods and services. It flies in the face of basic WTO principles to allow one partner to ban a whole host of services without reciprocal penalties. In practice, this sort of reciprocity gets broken all the time, but it doesn't make sense to say "we don't want to mirror other countries" when in trade policy, mirroring is a basic mandate of the WTO framework.
- uniqueuid 4y agoSorry but you're ignoring media regulation here, which is a completely domestic playbook and for the most part explicitly carved out of trade agreements. For protection of domestic civic society, culture and public opinion, trade agreements are irrelevant. That's how the french got to keep their quota for french-language music in broadcasting, for example.
- fhrow4484 4y ago> That argument makes no sense, because we do not want to mirror other countries. Tit-for-tat is literally how agreements around the world works. "Reciprocity treaty" if you want to make it fancy sounding, but it's just "tit-for-tat" for Taxes, Tariffs, Visitor visa & rules, etc.