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Not free speech. Amplification of speech and to an extent freedom of association. Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact same things on a dif

Not free speech. Amplification of speech and to an extent freedom of association. Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact same things on a different forum. And the entity being constrained is a foreign actor [edit] with likely state security apparatus ties.

RobotToaster 2y ago
> And the entity being constrained is a foreign actor Genuine question from a non-American: does the 1st amendment only apply to US citizens?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- arcticbull 2y ago
  The First Amendment enjoins only the US government.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  By its wording, no, because it applies to "Congress". Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. A later amendment is held to have "incorporated" this prohibition against the state governments as well, though that amendment doesn't actually specify anything in particular. ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") It is frequently argued that some act of the government violates the free speech rights of foreigners living abroad, which is to say that whatever it was the government did fell into the class of behaviors prohibited by the first amendment. People tend to find that argument weird; I don't know what its batting average is. Summing up, nothing extends rights to foreigners, but since the first amendment is a prohibition on the government rather than a grant of rights to certain protected people, foreigners arguably enjoy equal protection.
- perihelions 2y ago
  The 1st Amendment applies to US citizens' freedom to read/receive communications from non-US citizens (or i.e. read books by non-American authors). That's not under dispute: the current SCOTUS ruling both acknowledges, and sidesteps, that.
  - SCPlayz7000 2y ago
    Emphasis on US citizens
- gpm 2y ago
  It's not just US citizens, but per the supreme court "foreign organizations operating abroad possess no rights under the U. S. Constitution". In USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International specifically with regards to the first amendment. --- However TikTok US here is a domestic organization operating domestically merely controlled by a foreign organization operating abroad, which complicates matters. It has rights.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Courts and laws don't need to stop their analysis at "is it a corporation registered in the US." It is a foreign-controlled organization, therefore it is treated as a foreign organization. If you have ever dealt with the defense contracting apparatus, you will know this is how it works.
- Nifty3929 2y ago
  The US constitution does not apply to citizens - it applies to the government. Citizens in the US are implicitly allowed to do whatever they like, subject to laws that the government enacts. The constitution describes those areas where the government is allowed to pass laws. All other areas are off limits to the government, and left for the people to do as they like. To emphasize the point, the amendments specify certain areas that the government is extra-especially-not-allowed to create any laws about, like speech. The extent to which this is observed today is quite dubious. There are lots of laws that the US government passes which have little to do with anything the constitution allows them to do - but they kinda hand-wave around that and gesture toward something, like the "commerce clause" or whatnot as justification. But in theory - for any law passed - it is unconstitutional unless you can say exactly where in the constitution it is explicitly allowed. * Having written all that, I will add that "government" above means the US Federal government, not all the other ones. State, local, have a lot of latitude to make whatever laws they want, unless a federal law specifically prohibits it.
  - nwiswell 2y ago
    > * Having written all that, I will add that "government" above means the US Federal government, not all the other ones. State, local, have a lot of latitude to make whatever laws they want, unless a federal law specifically prohibits it. This is not entirely correct. In general many elements of the Constitution are incorporated and apply at all levels of government. It even outranks state constitutions where the two conflict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
    - parineum 2y ago
      In other words, states have a lot of latitude to make whatever laws they want, unless a federal law specifically prohibits it?
      - cgriswald 2y ago
        No, those aren't other words for the GP's statement. The Constitution, its Amendments, and decisions of the Supreme Court are not 'federal laws'.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Even if it did, that doesn't matter here, since it's American TikTok users whose speech is being suppressed.
- orwin 2y ago
  So, usually in a representative democracy (republic or not), the judiciary power is supposed to check and limit the other two (to avoid a tyranny of the majority). You can have that done in two way: with "case law", the only way in some countries (like the UK): basically if a law is enforced against a minority, it will be enforced against the majority. Other countries added a consitution. Its use is to limit the executive and legislative power of the government: the legislative power is supposed to prevent the law/executive order from existing or being executed, and base that decision on the constitution. TL:DR: no, it doesn't even apply to US citizen, only to US government. PS: "tyranny of the majority" for some is a definition fascism, i disagree, to me it isn't even proto-fascism, it lack a weird mythos about internal enemies and a few other mythos. It's closer bonapartism, or cesarism at worst. To be clear i think it is a precondition to have fascism (I.E as long as your case law/consitution is enforced for everybody the same way, you aren't a fascist state).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mmooss 2y ago
That may be why freedom of the press is also guaranteed.
eviks 2y ago
> Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact same things on a different forum. Yes, it's being suppressed. Criminalization is just one of the many coercive ways to censor something, but states have many tools in the box...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- metrix 2y ago
  > Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact same things on a different forum. s/criminalized/supressed/ and message still holds true. You can still say the exact same things on a different forum.
  - eviks 2y ago
    It only holds true if you ignore the substance of the right, the message holds true even if no one can hear you in that other forum!
School-Cotton 2y ago
Free speech is satisfied in every country, then, because you can sit at home alone and scream whatever you want at your wall without consequences.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  To respond to a comment which has now been deleted: I don't care about the First Amendment specifically. The US constitution is not magical divinely inspired scripture. I care about the underlying principles of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of association, regardless of how well or poorly those are reflected by a specific written law.
- stouset 2y ago
  You can literally go to any other competing platform and shout the same thing from the rooftops.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    No, you can't. TikTok was the only mainstream platform where pro-Palestinian content was allowed to go viral.
    - MisterKent 2y ago
      Allowed or encouraged? This is the problem. We can't be certain that a foreign actor couldn't destabilize our faith in our government by pushing pro-palestinian content. A small push on a platform can snowball since creators take the stances that don't get them cancelled or want to mimic the popular opinion
    - jay_kyburz 2y ago
      I'm a 50+ average Joe who only watches Australian state media (ABC) and I've seen plenty of content that I find shocking from both Israel and Hamas and I came away with sympathy for the Palestinians caught in the middle. Does that count as pro-Palestinian?
rockemsockem 2y ago
Code is speech. By saying you can't distribute a particular app in the United States you're restricting speech.
- lxgr 2y ago
  "Code is speech" is absurdly reductionist in most cases. Yes, the government censoring Tiktok's source code on Github would be a freedom of speech violation, but that's not what this is about, is it? See also: Tornado Cash. Publishing code facilitating money laundering is fine (you'll find the code still on Github!); running said code to facilitate money laundering isn't. Or to go with an even more extreme example: Writing code for a self-aiming and firing gun is speech [1], running said code on a gun in your driveway isn't. The fact that we are still debating such basics of the First Amendment here is baffling. This is almost as trivial as the other well-known limitations in my view (shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater etc.) [1] At least at the moment, and as far as I know; I think we might see this type of speech being restricted in the same way that some facts about the construction of nuclear weapons are "innate state secrets".
  - rockemsockem 2y ago
    I think it is largely about this. American companies (Google and Apple primarily) have been told by the government that they cannot distribute binaries running certain code to Americans. That seems like the real 1st amendment issue to me and I was quite surprised to learn that ByteDance only claimed that their own 1st amendment rights were being infringed on (which personally I find to be flimsier). EDIT: Tornado cash was taken down from GitHub though, so you don't have a point here
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Huh? It's up as a public archive on tornadocash/tornado-core as we speak. > American companies (Google and Apple primarily) have been told by the government that they cannot distribute binaries running certain code to Americans. Yes, in the same way that American companies and individuals are routinely prohibited by the government from distributing other binaries to Americans, most notably anything that circumvents DRMs as regulated by the DMCA. I really don't think the people that drafted the First Amendment had apps in mind when they thought of "speech", and would probably consider them something more like machinery (a printing press, a radio (not a radio station!) etc.) Interpreting Tiktok as a type of newspaper (which are widely protected even in democracies without an equivalent to the First Amendment) is much less of a leap of faith compared to considering an iOS executable speech.
tunesmith 2y ago
If your loud agreement with a lie is disseminated far more widely than your loud agreement with a truth, does it feel like you have free speech?

RobotToaster 2y ago

> And the entity being constrained is a foreign actor Genuine question from a non-American: does the 1st amendment only apply to US citizens?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
arcticbull 2y ago
The First Amendment enjoins only the US government.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
By its wording, no, because it applies to "Congress". Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. A later amendment is held to have "incorporated" this prohibition against the state governments as well, though that amendment doesn't actually specify anything in particular. ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") It is frequently argued that some act of the government violates the free speech rights of foreigners living abroad, which is to say that whatever it was the government did fell into the class of behaviors prohibited by the first amendment. People tend to find that argument weird; I don't know what its batting average is. Summing up, nothing extends rights to foreigners, but since the first amendment is a prohibition on the government rather than a grant of rights to certain protected people, foreigners arguably enjoy equal protection.
perihelions 2y ago
The 1st Amendment applies to US citizens' freedom to read/receive communications from non-US citizens (or i.e. read books by non-American authors). That's not under dispute: the current SCOTUS ruling both acknowledges, and sidesteps, that.
- SCPlayz7000 2y ago
  Emphasis on US citizens
gpm 2y ago
It's not just US citizens, but per the supreme court "foreign organizations operating abroad possess no rights under the U. S. Constitution". In USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International specifically with regards to the first amendment. --- However TikTok US here is a domestic organization operating domestically merely controlled by a foreign organization operating abroad, which complicates matters. It has rights.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Courts and laws don't need to stop their analysis at "is it a corporation registered in the US." It is a foreign-controlled organization, therefore it is treated as a foreign organization. If you have ever dealt with the defense contracting apparatus, you will know this is how it works.
Nifty3929 2y ago
The US constitution does not apply to citizens - it applies to the government. Citizens in the US are implicitly allowed to do whatever they like, subject to laws that the government enacts. The constitution describes those areas where the government is allowed to pass laws. All other areas are off limits to the government, and left for the people to do as they like. To emphasize the point, the amendments specify certain areas that the government is extra-especially-not-allowed to create any laws about, like speech. The extent to which this is observed today is quite dubious. There are lots of laws that the US government passes which have little to do with anything the constitution allows them to do - but they kinda hand-wave around that and gesture toward something, like the "commerce clause" or whatnot as justification. But in theory - for any law passed - it is unconstitutional unless you can say exactly where in the constitution it is explicitly allowed. * Having written all that, I will add that "government" above means the US Federal government, not all the other ones. State, local, have a lot of latitude to make whatever laws they want, unless a federal law specifically prohibits it.
- nwiswell 2y ago
  > * Having written all that, I will add that "government" above means the US Federal government, not all the other ones. State, local, have a lot of latitude to make whatever laws they want, unless a federal law specifically prohibits it. This is not entirely correct. In general many elements of the Constitution are incorporated and apply at all levels of government. It even outranks state constitutions where the two conflict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
  - parineum 2y ago
    In other words, states have a lot of latitude to make whatever laws they want, unless a federal law specifically prohibits it?
    - cgriswald 2y ago
      No, those aren't other words for the GP's statement. The Constitution, its Amendments, and decisions of the Supreme Court are not 'federal laws'.
School-Cotton 2y ago
Even if it did, that doesn't matter here, since it's American TikTok users whose speech is being suppressed.
orwin 2y ago
So, usually in a representative democracy (republic or not), the judiciary power is supposed to check and limit the other two (to avoid a tyranny of the majority). You can have that done in two way: with "case law", the only way in some countries (like the UK): basically if a law is enforced against a minority, it will be enforced against the majority. Other countries added a consitution. Its use is to limit the executive and legislative power of the government: the legislative power is supposed to prevent the law/executive order from existing or being executed, and base that decision on the constitution. TL:DR: no, it doesn't even apply to US citizen, only to US government. PS: "tyranny of the majority" for some is a definition fascism, i disagree, to me it isn't even proto-fascism, it lack a weird mythos about internal enemies and a few other mythos. It's closer bonapartism, or cesarism at worst. To be clear i think it is a precondition to have fascism (I.E as long as your case law/consitution is enforced for everybody the same way, you aren't a fascist state).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

mmooss 2y ago

That may be why freedom of the press is also guaranteed.

eviks 2y ago

> Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact same things on a different forum. Yes, it's being suppressed. Criminalization is just one of the many coercive ways to censor something, but states have many tools in the box...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
metrix 2y ago
> Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact same things on a different forum. s/criminalized/supressed/ and message still holds true. You can still say the exact same things on a different forum.
- eviks 2y ago
  It only holds true if you ignore the substance of the right, the message holds true even if no one can hear you in that other forum!

School-Cotton 2y ago

Free speech is satisfied in every country, then, because you can sit at home alone and scream whatever you want at your wall without consequences.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
School-Cotton 2y ago
To respond to a comment which has now been deleted: I don't care about the First Amendment specifically. The US constitution is not magical divinely inspired scripture. I care about the underlying principles of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of association, regardless of how well or poorly those are reflected by a specific written law.
stouset 2y ago
You can literally go to any other competing platform and shout the same thing from the rooftops.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  No, you can't. TikTok was the only mainstream platform where pro-Palestinian content was allowed to go viral.
  - MisterKent 2y ago
    Allowed or encouraged? This is the problem. We can't be certain that a foreign actor couldn't destabilize our faith in our government by pushing pro-palestinian content. A small push on a platform can snowball since creators take the stances that don't get them cancelled or want to mimic the popular opinion
  - jay_kyburz 2y ago
    I'm a 50+ average Joe who only watches Australian state media (ABC) and I've seen plenty of content that I find shocking from both Israel and Hamas and I came away with sympathy for the Palestinians caught in the middle. Does that count as pro-Palestinian?

rockemsockem 2y ago

Code is speech. By saying you can't distribute a particular app in the United States you're restricting speech.

lxgr 2y ago
"Code is speech" is absurdly reductionist in most cases. Yes, the government censoring Tiktok's source code on Github would be a freedom of speech violation, but that's not what this is about, is it? See also: Tornado Cash. Publishing code facilitating money laundering is fine (you'll find the code still on Github!); running said code to facilitate money laundering isn't. Or to go with an even more extreme example: Writing code for a self-aiming and firing gun is speech [1], running said code on a gun in your driveway isn't. The fact that we are still debating such basics of the First Amendment here is baffling. This is almost as trivial as the other well-known limitations in my view (shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater etc.) [1] At least at the moment, and as far as I know; I think we might see this type of speech being restricted in the same way that some facts about the construction of nuclear weapons are "innate state secrets".
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  I think it is largely about this. American companies (Google and Apple primarily) have been told by the government that they cannot distribute binaries running certain code to Americans. That seems like the real 1st amendment issue to me and I was quite surprised to learn that ByteDance only claimed that their own 1st amendment rights were being infringed on (which personally I find to be flimsier). EDIT: Tornado cash was taken down from GitHub though, so you don't have a point here
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Huh? It's up as a public archive on tornadocash/tornado-core as we speak. > American companies (Google and Apple primarily) have been told by the government that they cannot distribute binaries running certain code to Americans. Yes, in the same way that American companies and individuals are routinely prohibited by the government from distributing other binaries to Americans, most notably anything that circumvents DRMs as regulated by the DMCA. I really don't think the people that drafted the First Amendment had apps in mind when they thought of "speech", and would probably consider them something more like machinery (a printing press, a radio (not a radio station!) etc.) Interpreting Tiktok as a type of newspaper (which are widely protected even in democracies without an equivalent to the First Amendment) is much less of a leap of faith compared to considering an iOS executable speech.

tunesmith 2y ago

If your loud agreement with a lie is disseminated far more widely than your loud agreement with a truth, does it feel like you have free speech?