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That is speech. I'm sorry but I have yet to see a single person who makes this point admit that it's a form of speech suppression. This is classic First Amendm

That is speech. I'm sorry but I have yet to see a single person who makes this point admit that it's a form of speech suppression. This is classic First Amendment precedent. Just because the speaker is someone you don't like, or its content is anti-American (or what have you), doesn't mean it's not protected speech.

majormajor 2y ago
What? Many people just don't think the First Amendment applies to foreign nations. (Why would it??) And that restrictions on corporate control/structure for the US-based parts are not speech issues (e.g. imagine if free speech was a defense against an anti-trust prosecution). The simplest case for banning TikTok is simple reciprocity. China is no longer a market that needs the level of protectionism they currently have to develop. The second best is data privacy. Just a shame they won't apply the same to US companies yet. And then an additional reason is the one that's being used currently - risk of foreign influence. You'd hate to not ban it "because it hasn't happened yet" just for it to happen in the future. China keeping out US apps seems to have worked out great for their local industry, I'm hardly convinced it wouldn't also be a good thing for US citizens. And with the foreign-country thing tossing Constitutional issues out the window, go nuts.
- Defletter 2y ago
  Let's remind ourselves of what the First Amendment says: > 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. The Constitution does not consider Freedom of Speech a positive right, one that can be granted to some but not others. It is a negative right against the government. It's about as broad and as absolute as you can get. This is why the right also applies to legal entities (eg: companies), even foreign legal entities. It is not limited to citizens, it is not limited to persons.
  - unclebucknasty 2y ago
    The First Amendment famously has limits, which have been tested and have held, repeatedly. These limits generally arise from conflict with other rights or societal good. On the latter point, obscenity is one of the most well-known exceptions. The government can and does make laws against it. The idea that a foreign, adversarial government would have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry at-scale is obviously not consistent with the societal good (or the "common defense", for that matter), so is outside of the First Amendment's scope/intent. If you want to make an argument that it's not happening, that's one thing. But, your assertions about TikTok having some blanket "right" here are false.
    - Defletter 2y ago
      > The idea that a foreign, adversarial government would have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry at-scale is obviously not consistent with the societal good (or the "common defense", for that matter), so is outside of the First Amendment's scope/intent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General
      - unclebucknasty 2y ago
        In this case, a U.S. citizen sued, not the Chinese government. Again, foreign governments don't have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry.
        Defletter 2y ago
        You seem oddly enthusiastic about giving your government the right to violate freedom of speech for entities you do not like, thus removing a platform used both as a platform for speech and for commerce, for 150 million Americans. It totally makes sense to violate the First Amendment over unproven and hypothetical fears of FYP algorithm misuse. Enjoy your slippery slope :)
        2y ago
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  I think you're both conflating the concept of "free speech = good" with what forms of speech are, at this moment, permitted or forbidden by US law. For someone who believes in the concept of free speech, the fact that US constitutional rights to free speech in practice almost certainly do not protect overseas business interests is really an embarrassing corner case. Even if you do genuinely consider national and foreign actors to be different kinds of entity, so that it could be ethically sound to protect one and not the other, there's a simple technical reason for constantly the distinction to be artificial: Free speech protection can be gained merely by funnelling the speech through an intermediary US citizen.
  - rileymat2 2y ago
    https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/lamont-v-postmaster-general/ https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/lamont-v-postmaster-... This case shows that there is a first amendment right to receive.
stouset 2y ago
This has nothing to do with the speech. The speech is protected as always. You are free to say the same things on any platform you like: soapbox, print, a website, social media, anywhere. What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience.
- sethammons 2y ago
  How I read your stance: You are not allowed to hear what they have to say. They have poison thoughts that will infect you and others around you. We must protect our children from poison thoughts. We can either strive for an educated populace that can identify propaganda or we use propaganda ourselves on ourselves. Propaganda is winning.
  - stouset 2y ago
    Bold of you to read something completely different than what I actually said. Self-propaganda?
    - sethammons 2y ago
      I'm engaging in curiosity to understand. I'd love to understand your position better. You wrote: > What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience. That seems to imply that certain voices or ideas must be excluded to prevent this control. Isn't that, at its core, a decision that some poisonous thoughts should not be allowed to reach certain people? If not, how do you see this distinction? Does freedom of speech not include freedom to hear what others may find objectionable?
  - unclebucknasty 2y ago
    Not sure what's hard to grasp about a country deciding it's a bad idea to allow adversarial nations to run psyops on its populace at-scale. Your solution is to open the floodgates, allowing all manner of military/intel-grade psychological manipulation, bots, AI, etc. to be unleashed on our population, but try to educate the entire population to become professionals at identifying and resisting these tactics? Seems absurd on its face. It's strange to see someone trying to make that sound like the reasonable option.

majormajor 2y ago

What? Many people just don't think the First Amendment applies to foreign nations. (Why would it??) And that restrictions on corporate control/structure for the US-based parts are not speech issues (e.g. imagine if free speech was a defense against an anti-trust prosecution). The simplest case for banning TikTok is simple reciprocity. China is no longer a market that needs the level of protectionism they currently have to develop. The second best is data privacy. Just a shame they won't apply the same to US companies yet. And then an additional reason is the one that's being used currently - risk of foreign influence. You'd hate to not ban it "because it hasn't happened yet" just for it to happen in the future. China keeping out US apps seems to have worked out great for their local industry, I'm hardly convinced it wouldn't also be a good thing for US citizens. And with the foreign-country thing tossing Constitutional issues out the window, go nuts.

Defletter 2y ago
Let's remind ourselves of what the First Amendment says: > 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. The Constitution does not consider Freedom of Speech a positive right, one that can be granted to some but not others. It is a negative right against the government. It's about as broad and as absolute as you can get. This is why the right also applies to legal entities (eg: companies), even foreign legal entities. It is not limited to citizens, it is not limited to persons.
- unclebucknasty 2y ago
  The First Amendment famously has limits, which have been tested and have held, repeatedly. These limits generally arise from conflict with other rights or societal good. On the latter point, obscenity is one of the most well-known exceptions. The government can and does make laws against it. The idea that a foreign, adversarial government would have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry at-scale is obviously not consistent with the societal good (or the "common defense", for that matter), so is outside of the First Amendment's scope/intent. If you want to make an argument that it's not happening, that's one thing. But, your assertions about TikTok having some blanket "right" here are false.
  - Defletter 2y ago
    > The idea that a foreign, adversarial government would have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry at-scale is obviously not consistent with the societal good (or the "common defense", for that matter), so is outside of the First Amendment's scope/intent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General
    - unclebucknasty 2y ago
      In this case, a U.S. citizen sued, not the Chinese government. Again, foreign governments don't have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry.
      - Defletter 2y ago
        You seem oddly enthusiastic about giving your government the right to violate freedom of speech for entities you do not like, thus removing a platform used both as a platform for speech and for commerce, for 150 million Americans. It totally makes sense to violate the First Amendment over unproven and hypothetical fears of FYP algorithm misuse. Enjoy your slippery slope :)
        2y ago
akoboldfrying 2y ago
I think you're both conflating the concept of "free speech = good" with what forms of speech are, at this moment, permitted or forbidden by US law. For someone who believes in the concept of free speech, the fact that US constitutional rights to free speech in practice almost certainly do not protect overseas business interests is really an embarrassing corner case. Even if you do genuinely consider national and foreign actors to be different kinds of entity, so that it could be ethically sound to protect one and not the other, there's a simple technical reason for constantly the distinction to be artificial: Free speech protection can be gained merely by funnelling the speech through an intermediary US citizen.
- rileymat2 2y ago
  https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/lamont-v-postmaster-general/ https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/lamont-v-postmaster-... This case shows that there is a first amendment right to receive.

stouset 2y ago

This has nothing to do with the speech. The speech is protected as always. You are free to say the same things on any platform you like: soapbox, print, a website, social media, anywhere. What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience.

sethammons 2y ago
How I read your stance: You are not allowed to hear what they have to say. They have poison thoughts that will infect you and others around you. We must protect our children from poison thoughts. We can either strive for an educated populace that can identify propaganda or we use propaganda ourselves on ourselves. Propaganda is winning.
- stouset 2y ago
  Bold of you to read something completely different than what I actually said. Self-propaganda?
  - sethammons 2y ago
    I'm engaging in curiosity to understand. I'd love to understand your position better. You wrote: > What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience. That seems to imply that certain voices or ideas must be excluded to prevent this control. Isn't that, at its core, a decision that some poisonous thoughts should not be allowed to reach certain people? If not, how do you see this distinction? Does freedom of speech not include freedom to hear what others may find objectionable?
- unclebucknasty 2y ago
  Not sure what's hard to grasp about a country deciding it's a bad idea to allow adversarial nations to run psyops on its populace at-scale. Your solution is to open the floodgates, allowing all manner of military/intel-grade psychological manipulation, bots, AI, etc. to be unleashed on our population, but try to educate the entire population to become professionals at identifying and resisting these tactics? Seems absurd on its face. It's strange to see someone trying to make that sound like the reasonable option.