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An an American, I also find it outrageous. In fact, as I understand it, our most fundamental law (the Constitution) clearly guarantees "freedom of speech and fr
by mcherm 2y ago
An an American, I also find it outrageous. In fact, as I understand it, our most fundamental law (the Constitution) clearly guarantees "freedom of speech and freedom of the press" which specifically means that the government may NOT shut down a particular publisher because the government does not like what they say, or who it is that owns them.
Unfortunately, our Supreme Court unanimously disagrees with me about what our Constitution requires.
- sanderjd 2y agoThe Constitution does not guarantee any rights to the Chinese government.
- Oranguru 2y agoHowever, these rights should be guaranteed to a company operating in the USA and strictly adhering to US law. Of course, if the law is (arbitrarily) changed to make this illegal due to the Chinese government's stake, then it could be forced to shut down, but that would be inconsistent with the constitution.
- motorest 2y ago> However, these rights should be guaranteed to a company operating in the USA and strictly adhering to US law. ByteDance is a Chinese company with it's headquarters in China. The so-called TikTok ban is a call for ByteDance to sell off it's controlling position over TikTok, otherwise TikTok can no longer operate in the US. The fact that China is spinning this issue as a TikTok ban is telling.
- bdangubic 2y agoWhat would you call Tesla not being able to sell cars in China unless sold to a Chinese company - what might you call that? :)
- josephcsible 2y agoI'd call it "the way things actually were from 1994 until 2022": https://www.carscoops.com/2021/12/china-will-no-longer-require-foreign-carmakers-to-form-joint-ventures/ https://www.carscoops.com/2021/12/china-will-no-longer-requi...
- bdangubic 2y agoso not “ban”? :)
- josephcsible 2y agoGiga Shanghai opened in 2019 while that was still in effect, so no, not "ban".
- sanderjd 2y agoIf they want to do that, of course they can. (And indeed, Chinese car companies are already treated differently in US law to such an extent that they aren't in the US market at all.)
- sanderjd 2y agoYou didn't say why that would be inconsistent with the Constitution, you merely asserted that it is. But it isn't. Our government gets to decide the terms under which businesses operate in this country. Always has and always will. This is not a constitutional question.
- yyyfb 2y agoTikTok's problem isn't with what they say openly, it's with the amount of invisible control exerted by a foreign government.
- warble 2y agoWhich they exert through promotion or demotion of speech. In the end it's still a free speech issue in my mind.
- ninkendo 2y agoForeign governments don't have a right to free speech in the US. They never have and the very idea is absurd. It's getting really tiresome to have to repeat this.
- yyyfb 2y agoNot necessarily. China pursues many objectives when it comes to its national security, such as intimidation and coercion of dissidents or opponents of its regime living abroad. Assuming China's equivalent of the Patriot act lets it treat TikTok user data as an open book, there is a lot for them to learn from it.
- jayd16 2y agoIsn't this like saying a popular newspaper should be banned because of what they choose to put on the front page?
- aprilthird2021 2y agoIt is exactly that, but you'll see a lot of mental gymnastics to try to bend around it, or they'll just mask off say "Eh, gotta fight fire with fire"
- unethical_ban 2y agoNo, it's like banning a newspaper because it is operated by Chinese intelligence agencies, regardless of what it publishes.
- rayiner 2y ago> shut down a particular publisher because the government does not like what they say, or who it is that owns them. I don’t see where that’s in the constitution.
- z3phyr 2y agoDoes the constitution apply everywhere? We take the global world for granted, but it is made up of sovereign states many of them have their own constitution.
- TulliusCicero 2y agoThis constant conflation of speech rules and trade rules is tiresome. If it was just about content then yes, it'd be unconstitutional. But security/trade concerns about a geopolitical opponent are not the same thing, have never been the same thing, and it would be crazy to treat them as the same thing. Not to mention that as a trade issue, China already bans basically all the popular American social media sites, and just a ton of popular US sites in general. Turnabout is entirely fair play and expected when it comes to trade.
- chrisco255 2y agoThe CCP does not have freedom of speech in America and it's not press. China has banned American apps including Google, Facebook, etc for decades at this point btw.
- screye 2y agoFrom a historic standpoint, rights are peacetime luxuries. The US sees China as an existential threat and TikTok is one of its key weapons. Tiktok is getting banned for the same reason Cuba can't have nukes. It's a national security concern. I don't endorse it. But I understand it. America blundered in the 80s by allowing technology transfer to then and still hostile foreign power. It has woken up to its stupidity 45 years too late. But better late than never. It's not fair.....but love and war Yada yada.
- tensor 2y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but the constitution only applies to American citizens, not corporations, and certainly not foreign citizens.
- juunpp 2y agoThe ban on a communications platform effectively censors people's speech.
- zoky 2y agoActually, that would be considered a “time, place, and manner” restriction, which has been specifically ruled to be not a violation of the First Amendment.
- juunpp 2y agoInteresting. But the time here is basically "indefinitely", the place one that affects 150m+ people, and the manner the most draconian possible. Not a lawyer, but that seems like overreach to me.
- stackskipton 2y agoI'd say it's more banning of specific communication platform like radio station since other similar type services could be developed and we have already seen attempts with IG reels and YouTube Shorts. Also, censorship has been allowed by courts time and time again if it's narrow focused to satisfy compelling government interest and not overly broad.
- bloqs 2y agoThe American citizens responsible for the US part of the business are
- bill_joy_fanboy 2y agoThe whole thing is moot when you can be banned from platforms for voicing certain speech. If platforms can do censorship, so can the government.
- zuminator 2y agoWe already do that in the electoral process. Campaign contributions are "speech," while at the same time we ban foreign nationals from such speech (although as far as I know the constitutionality of the issue has not been tested beyond the 9th Circuit.) https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/05/16/17-50337.pdf https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/05/16/1...
- stale2002 2y agoThey don't have to shut down. They can simply divest. We don't allow own telephone system to be foreign owned, and those laws have been around for 90 years, and nobody is crying about free speech over that.
- gcapu 2y agoI thought that according law they are distributors, not publishers. That’s how they avoid liability for all the damage they do. They really try to have it both ways