5 ms·

White House claims expansive power to nullify TikTok ban and other laws

105 points by ytpete 1y ago

ytpete 1y ago
> Attorney General Pam Bondi told tech companies that they could lawfully violate a statute barring American companies from supporting TikTok based on a sweeping claim that President Trump has the constitutional power to set aside laws, newly disclosed documents show. > Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his “constitutional duties,” so the law banning the social media app must give way to his “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.” > The letters ... portrayed Mr. Trump as having nullified the legal effects of a statute that Congress passed by large bipartisan majorities in 2024 and that the Supreme Court unanimously upheld.
- tw04 1y ago
  Buckle up, here comes the attempt at a dictatorship. There's a reason our constitution has checks and balances... and no, LEGALLY the president can't just ignore laws. But in this timeline I guess anything goes.
  - gigatexal 1y ago
    Things really are getting scary. Tech people with bold ideas. Don’t go to America. Don’t build your companies there. Don’t employ Americans. Build it anywhere else. America ain’t what it used to be. It’s slowly but surely becoming a dictatorship and it’ll be run by the dumbest American to ever live: Donald J Trump.
    - nielsbot 1y ago
      Also, he’s pretty dumb but the real problem is his absolute and total lack of empathy. What a sociopath.
    - nielsbot 1y ago
      I think you mean his cronies and conspirators: Steven Miller, SCOTUS, Russel Voght, et al.
    - bdcravens 1y ago
      > the dumbest American to ever live: Donald J Trump While like many, I can't stand him, I'm not sure if that's an accurate statement. He (or his handlers) have done an amazing job of leveraging the anger and fear of tens of millions. He's built a "tribe" that those pitching all those podcasts and courses a few years ago could only dream about.
      - breadwinner 1y ago
        There was a viral post on this topic recently: https://old.reddit.com/r/thebulwark/comments/1ljbvtw/hottest_take_stupidamericans_are_the_new/ https://old.reddit.com/r/thebulwark/comments/1ljbvtw/hottest...
        spwa4 1y ago
        But ... the whole reason Trump got elected is the fact that the electorate has split into us-vs-them group identities, he works through polarization. And although this post captures how one group (let's call it the "internet generation") feels about the world, it's probably not helping with polarization. You have to admire, in fact, how smart Trump is. Look at the central "problem" according to that post: "But see, not everybody was thinking that Hillary Clinton was an alien, that global warming was a Chinese hoax and that what America needed most of all was a plywood wall stretching from Texas to California. Only the stupid people were" Holy crap this is polarizing. AND WE DON'T EVEN DISAGREE ON THESE. These sort of statements are the exact opposite of what we need to defeat Trump. Because no, this is NOT a difference between "smart" and "dumb". If you abstract just a little bit ... Hillary Clinton is an unpopular war hawk. Would you like her as president? I wouldn't, just about the only big positive I see in her is that it's long past time for a female president. But please: not her. She IS an alien in that I don't know who this woman represents. Not me, certainly, and I frankly don't see or know any group that she does represent. I'd MUCH prefer AOC, but frankly, I'd prefer Nikki Haley over her. "Global warming is a Chinese hoax". This is the one I would most describe as "dumb". But ... not really global warming policy has not worked for 50 years. This is, of course, not a reason to give up on it, but it probably is time to change course bigtime. And, sorry, the protests about global warming ... are equally dumb as Trump's (made-in-china) MAGA caps. "what America needs most ... wall stretching from Texas to California". Obviously "dumb" Americans like this because life has become ever more difficult and immigration (specifically pressure on the job market and housing market) is a huge and growing problem. Trump only gets points because he does something. The ("our") internet generation is getting old. Perhaps not dying yet, but we are not young anymore. And the train has definitely left the station: nobody's growing up to be internet generation anymore. The only thing that is happening to the internet generation is that people are leaving it. Not in great numbers. Not yet. But we'll only be shrinking from 5 years ago forward. Yet another reason to find a way to agree with Trump's electorate. I feel like these viewpoints (I hope) represent "the internet generation". My conclusion is Trump got elected because he convinced me and the "real Americans" that we disagree. We don't. These are superficial, not worth having a fight over and CERTAINLY not worth having a president like Trump over.
    - imiric 1y ago
      Trump will eventually go away. What's really concerning is the replacement being someone much more intelligent and competent. Some of whom are already running the show behind the scenes.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        The people behind the scenes running the show rarely migrate to center stage. They just find the next performer to manipulate from behind the curtains.
      - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
        The fact that Trump will eventually go away is precisely why people should avoid the US until he does. At age 79, he probably doesn't have enough time left to massacre too many citizens, but he's got plenty of time to send immigrants who displease him to CECOT. I'm not saying people who already have a life in the US need to flee, but if you don't the US will still be here whenever he's not.
    - computerthings 1y ago
      [dead]
  - DanHulton 1y ago
    He hasn't abided by any checks nor balances so far. If you're not buckled up long ago, what exactly were you waiting for?
    - sheiyei 1y ago
      Good luck America, good luck the rest of the world.
      - AtariATMHacker 1y ago
        [dead]
        dinfinity 1y ago
        Yeah, we're worried as fuck, I can tell you. The US is sitting on a lot of fucking firepower. It has always been hawkish and trigger-happy, but with the current crop of lunatics in power anything could happen. "But Trump is against foreign wars!" -- yeah, right up until he gleefully shared a meme of the parody song "Bomb Iran". Everybody hopes cooler heads will prevail than Trump and his batshit insane cronies.
  - defrost 1y ago
    LEGALLY: the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_immunity_in_the_U... PRACTICALLY: the current and former POTUS has demonstrated he can ignore laws and that either no one will attempt to bell the cat or, if attempted, succeed in any meaningful way.
  - histo9 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - majormajor 1y ago
      Gosh, if Ted Cruz thought Obama was abusing his powers, and now Democrats think Trump is, Cruz must be lining up bi-partisan legislation to finally crack down on the ability of the President to abuse powers!
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      You know full well that this isn't the same thing, which is why you've created a new account so your fascist apologia won't be linked with your main. He's claiming the authority not just to selectively enforce laws, but to rewrite them. (Why do the companies care about this distinction? They're worried, correctly, that many of us will demand the next administration prosecute them for what's now been months of flagrant lawbreaking.)
    - eli_gottlieb 1y ago
      If Congress and SCOTUS say to ban TikTok, the President needs to go ahead and ban TikTok.
  - fastball 1y ago
    The checks and balances come after the Executive branch (or any of the three branches) oversteps. They can't come before. If all three other branches refuse to do anything about it, how is that not the system working as intended?
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      We're way past that point. The Trump regime is currently prosecuting a Congressmember on fabricated charges in retaliation for opposing his immigration policy. We've seen the same dynamic on the tariffs; a substantial majority of Congress knows the tariffs are bad and does not support them, but the Trumpists would never permit it to come up for a vote.
    - wvenable 1y ago
      I don't know why you were down voted this is exactly correct. The system is not working as intended though; it was designed to be adversarial with each branch expected to want to keep its own power. The whole system falls apart when the other branches of government simply abdicate all their power.
      - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
        Congress didn't _abdicate_ their power. Trump stole it. One of his first actions in office was to free the violent mob he sent after Congress last time they exercised power against him.
        ethbr1 1y ago
        There's a much stronger argument that Trump's personality cult in the current GOP legislature is doing the same. Threatening primaries and social media tirades against his legislative opponents chases any Republican willing to check him out of the party. I mean, Christ, only 2 fiscal conservative Republicans had an issue with deficit spending greater than what the House had passed? And a debt limit increase? The real problem with Congressional GOP independence is that enough of them don't decide something is too much at the same time. Ones and twos are easily picked off.
  - AtariATMHacker 1y ago
    [dead]
- saghm 1y ago
  Of course, all that stuff about vetoes and overriding vetoes in the actual text of the Constitution were just a trap for the previous 250 years of presidents who weren't smart enough to find the secret hidden clause that lets them just arbitrarily decide that certain laws don't apply.
bdcravens 1y ago
As far as power grab politics go, this is a smart move, picking something so popular yet relatively low impact as far as real world issues go. It's a total Trojan Horse of course.
- votepaunchy 1y ago
  No different than sanctuary cities or the de facto legalization of marijuana.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    It is different, because no one purported that those things made illegal immigrants or substances permanently legal. They just decided not to prioritize enforcement.
xnx 1y ago
On the one hand, this is terrifying precedent for future behavior. On the other hand, the ban is stupid and shouldn't exist, so it's hard for me to get upset. Sometimes the right things happen in the wrong way.
- bdcravens 1y ago
  That's why this is the perfect issue for an autocratic power grab: there will be many who applaud it, even those who are young and vehemently opposed to him. Standing on principles can be difficult, as it often requires losing something you love.
- jkaplowitz 1y ago
  If he wants the ban gone, he should push for Congress to overturn it, with whatever veto threats or other political pressure he wants to offer as motivation. He shouldn’t claim a broad power to ignore the law. And he can’t credibly claim the TikTok ban is unconstitutional when it’s already been upheld by SCOTUS.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    This is the way. When you control all three branches of government, why not use that power to do things the right way? Not doing it the right way is the power grab, and that's the point.
- foogazi 1y ago
  No - don’t fall for it We have a system in place to undo congressional action
- napierzaza 1y ago
  [dead]
- cosmicgadget 1y ago
  That never justifies doing them the wrong way.
siliconc0w 1y ago
Democrats should just declare they hold the law as valid and any tech company that ignores it will suffer the consequences it prescribes when they come back into power.
- dylan604 1y ago
  will suffer the consequences it prescribes if they come back into power. I guess we'll see in the mid-terms, but there's no guarantee at this point. A few special elections is not a telling of things to come for the whole country regardless of how many news articles hoping it does. Do not count on a blue wave as much as you would like it to happen. The right is just that much better at getting their message out than the left will ever be. It's much easier when you can just make stuff up and lie about everything that is verifiably false and your base eats it up. You can't counter that, at least they have shown no concept of being able to yet.
  - thrance 1y ago
    > The right is just that much better at getting their message out than the left will ever be. Absolutely true of the democrats, not so much of the actual left. Look at Mamdani's meteoric rise in the NYC mayoral primaries. Granted, it was in a very progressive city but still.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  I am absolutely a single issue voter, for as long as Trump is alive, on who will promise the most punishment for him and everyone associated with him for their misdeeds.
- almosthere 1y ago
  [flagged]
- thrance 1y ago
  That's part of an obvious winning strategy, but the establishment is too stupid and weak to notice that hate and resentment are the main drivers of modern politics. Instead, they'll keep trying to "build bridges" and "seek bipartisanship" with a group of people that cheer on the murder of one of them [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/melissa-hortman-mike-lee-minnesota https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/melissa-hort...
SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
Ridiculous that this got flagged. Do people think that Trump rewriting laws to suit his whim isn't going to become relevant to their own companies and projects?
- thrance 1y ago
  They still believe they're in the in-group maybe? Or they're just that ideologically captive.
- mandmandam 1y ago
  Honestly, no, it's not the least bit surprising that this was flagged. It's a damn-near inevitable consequence of letting anyone on the internet flag things. What's truly ridiculous (though not surprising [0]) is that it still hasn't been white listed by HN moderators. They're the ones who bear responsibility for this major story being suppressed. 0 - Growing list of recent falsely flagged stories here: https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=mandmandam https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=mandmandam
- myvoiceismypass 1y ago
  Not so ridiculous when you realize who runs this site.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    I'd expect them to be especially interested! It's virtually certain that some number of YC companies over the next four years will find themselves in a similar position to TikTok over the next four years, wondering whether they can get away with bribing Trump to rewrite a law in their favor.
- itsdrewmiller 1y ago
  I don't think it's ridiculous that it got flagged - it's only superficially about technology, and is instead mostly about general US politics. Many people don't think HN is the place to discuss general US politics. (I wouldn't personally flag it since it doesn't seem like it's already all over multiple news sites.)
cosmicgadget 1y ago
> In letters to companies like Apple and Google, Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his “constitutional duties,” so the law banning the social media app must give way to his “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.” This is like tariff negotiations with the whole world being about a fentanyl emergency. I can't wait to hear oral arguments on this in 2027 after this supposed power is temporarily upheld from the shadow docket.
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]

105 points by ytpete 1y ago

> Attorney General Pam Bondi told tech companies that they could lawfully violate a statute barring American companies from supporting TikTok based on a sweeping claim that President Trump has the constitutional power to set aside laws, newly disclosed documents show. > Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his “constitutional duties,” so the law banning the social media app must give way to his “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.” > The letters ... portrayed Mr. Trump as having nullified the legal effects of a statute that Congress passed by large bipartisan majorities in 2024 and that the Supreme Court unanimously upheld.

tw04 1y ago
Buckle up, here comes the attempt at a dictatorship. There's a reason our constitution has checks and balances... and no, LEGALLY the president can't just ignore laws. But in this timeline I guess anything goes.
- gigatexal 1y ago
  Things really are getting scary. Tech people with bold ideas. Don’t go to America. Don’t build your companies there. Don’t employ Americans. Build it anywhere else. America ain’t what it used to be. It’s slowly but surely becoming a dictatorship and it’ll be run by the dumbest American to ever live: Donald J Trump.
  - nielsbot 1y ago
    Also, he’s pretty dumb but the real problem is his absolute and total lack of empathy. What a sociopath.
  - nielsbot 1y ago
    I think you mean his cronies and conspirators: Steven Miller, SCOTUS, Russel Voght, et al.
  - bdcravens 1y ago
    > the dumbest American to ever live: Donald J Trump While like many, I can't stand him, I'm not sure if that's an accurate statement. He (or his handlers) have done an amazing job of leveraging the anger and fear of tens of millions. He's built a "tribe" that those pitching all those podcasts and courses a few years ago could only dream about.
    - breadwinner 1y ago
      There was a viral post on this topic recently: https://old.reddit.com/r/thebulwark/comments/1ljbvtw/hottest_take_stupidamericans_are_the_new/ https://old.reddit.com/r/thebulwark/comments/1ljbvtw/hottest...
      - spwa4 1y ago
        But ... the whole reason Trump got elected is the fact that the electorate has split into us-vs-them group identities, he works through polarization. And although this post captures how one group (let's call it the "internet generation") feels about the world, it's probably not helping with polarization. You have to admire, in fact, how smart Trump is. Look at the central "problem" according to that post: "But see, not everybody was thinking that Hillary Clinton was an alien, that global warming was a Chinese hoax and that what America needed most of all was a plywood wall stretching from Texas to California. Only the stupid people were" Holy crap this is polarizing. AND WE DON'T EVEN DISAGREE ON THESE. These sort of statements are the exact opposite of what we need to defeat Trump. Because no, this is NOT a difference between "smart" and "dumb". If you abstract just a little bit ... Hillary Clinton is an unpopular war hawk. Would you like her as president? I wouldn't, just about the only big positive I see in her is that it's long past time for a female president. But please: not her. She IS an alien in that I don't know who this woman represents. Not me, certainly, and I frankly don't see or know any group that she does represent. I'd MUCH prefer AOC, but frankly, I'd prefer Nikki Haley over her. "Global warming is a Chinese hoax". This is the one I would most describe as "dumb". But ... not really global warming policy has not worked for 50 years. This is, of course, not a reason to give up on it, but it probably is time to change course bigtime. And, sorry, the protests about global warming ... are equally dumb as Trump's (made-in-china) MAGA caps. "what America needs most ... wall stretching from Texas to California". Obviously "dumb" Americans like this because life has become ever more difficult and immigration (specifically pressure on the job market and housing market) is a huge and growing problem. Trump only gets points because he does something. The ("our") internet generation is getting old. Perhaps not dying yet, but we are not young anymore. And the train has definitely left the station: nobody's growing up to be internet generation anymore. The only thing that is happening to the internet generation is that people are leaving it. Not in great numbers. Not yet. But we'll only be shrinking from 5 years ago forward. Yet another reason to find a way to agree with Trump's electorate. I feel like these viewpoints (I hope) represent "the internet generation". My conclusion is Trump got elected because he convinced me and the "real Americans" that we disagree. We don't. These are superficial, not worth having a fight over and CERTAINLY not worth having a president like Trump over.
  - imiric 1y ago
    Trump will eventually go away. What's really concerning is the replacement being someone much more intelligent and competent. Some of whom are already running the show behind the scenes.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      The people behind the scenes running the show rarely migrate to center stage. They just find the next performer to manipulate from behind the curtains.
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      The fact that Trump will eventually go away is precisely why people should avoid the US until he does. At age 79, he probably doesn't have enough time left to massacre too many citizens, but he's got plenty of time to send immigrants who displease him to CECOT. I'm not saying people who already have a life in the US need to flee, but if you don't the US will still be here whenever he's not.
  - computerthings 1y ago
    [dead]
- DanHulton 1y ago
  He hasn't abided by any checks nor balances so far. If you're not buckled up long ago, what exactly were you waiting for?
  - sheiyei 1y ago
    Good luck America, good luck the rest of the world.
    - AtariATMHacker 1y ago
      [dead]
      - dinfinity 1y ago
        Yeah, we're worried as fuck, I can tell you. The US is sitting on a lot of fucking firepower. It has always been hawkish and trigger-happy, but with the current crop of lunatics in power anything could happen. "But Trump is against foreign wars!" -- yeah, right up until he gleefully shared a meme of the parody song "Bomb Iran". Everybody hopes cooler heads will prevail than Trump and his batshit insane cronies.
- defrost 1y ago
  LEGALLY: the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_immunity_in_the_U... PRACTICALLY: the current and former POTUS has demonstrated he can ignore laws and that either no one will attempt to bell the cat or, if attempted, succeed in any meaningful way.
- histo9 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - majormajor 1y ago
    Gosh, if Ted Cruz thought Obama was abusing his powers, and now Democrats think Trump is, Cruz must be lining up bi-partisan legislation to finally crack down on the ability of the President to abuse powers!
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    You know full well that this isn't the same thing, which is why you've created a new account so your fascist apologia won't be linked with your main. He's claiming the authority not just to selectively enforce laws, but to rewrite them. (Why do the companies care about this distinction? They're worried, correctly, that many of us will demand the next administration prosecute them for what's now been months of flagrant lawbreaking.)
  - eli_gottlieb 1y ago
    If Congress and SCOTUS say to ban TikTok, the President needs to go ahead and ban TikTok.
- fastball 1y ago
  The checks and balances come after the Executive branch (or any of the three branches) oversteps. They can't come before. If all three other branches refuse to do anything about it, how is that not the system working as intended?
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    We're way past that point. The Trump regime is currently prosecuting a Congressmember on fabricated charges in retaliation for opposing his immigration policy. We've seen the same dynamic on the tariffs; a substantial majority of Congress knows the tariffs are bad and does not support them, but the Trumpists would never permit it to come up for a vote.
  - wvenable 1y ago
    I don't know why you were down voted this is exactly correct. The system is not working as intended though; it was designed to be adversarial with each branch expected to want to keep its own power. The whole system falls apart when the other branches of government simply abdicate all their power.
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      Congress didn't _abdicate_ their power. Trump stole it. One of his first actions in office was to free the violent mob he sent after Congress last time they exercised power against him.
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        There's a much stronger argument that Trump's personality cult in the current GOP legislature is doing the same. Threatening primaries and social media tirades against his legislative opponents chases any Republican willing to check him out of the party. I mean, Christ, only 2 fiscal conservative Republicans had an issue with deficit spending greater than what the House had passed? And a debt limit increase? The real problem with Congressional GOP independence is that enough of them don't decide something is too much at the same time. Ones and twos are easily picked off.
- AtariATMHacker 1y ago
  [dead]
saghm 1y ago
Of course, all that stuff about vetoes and overriding vetoes in the actual text of the Constitution were just a trap for the previous 250 years of presidents who weren't smart enough to find the secret hidden clause that lets them just arbitrarily decide that certain laws don't apply.

bdcravens 1y ago

As far as power grab politics go, this is a smart move, picking something so popular yet relatively low impact as far as real world issues go. It's a total Trojan Horse of course.

votepaunchy 1y ago
No different than sanctuary cities or the de facto legalization of marijuana.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  It is different, because no one purported that those things made illegal immigrants or substances permanently legal. They just decided not to prioritize enforcement.

xnx 1y ago

On the one hand, this is terrifying precedent for future behavior. On the other hand, the ban is stupid and shouldn't exist, so it's hard for me to get upset. Sometimes the right things happen in the wrong way.

bdcravens 1y ago
That's why this is the perfect issue for an autocratic power grab: there will be many who applaud it, even those who are young and vehemently opposed to him. Standing on principles can be difficult, as it often requires losing something you love.
jkaplowitz 1y ago
If he wants the ban gone, he should push for Congress to overturn it, with whatever veto threats or other political pressure he wants to offer as motivation. He shouldn’t claim a broad power to ignore the law. And he can’t credibly claim the TikTok ban is unconstitutional when it’s already been upheld by SCOTUS.
- dylan604 1y ago
  This is the way. When you control all three branches of government, why not use that power to do things the right way? Not doing it the right way is the power grab, and that's the point.
foogazi 1y ago
No - don’t fall for it We have a system in place to undo congressional action
napierzaza 1y ago
[dead]
cosmicgadget 1y ago
That never justifies doing them the wrong way.

siliconc0w 1y ago

Democrats should just declare they hold the law as valid and any tech company that ignores it will suffer the consequences it prescribes when they come back into power.

dylan604 1y ago
will suffer the consequences it prescribes if they come back into power. I guess we'll see in the mid-terms, but there's no guarantee at this point. A few special elections is not a telling of things to come for the whole country regardless of how many news articles hoping it does. Do not count on a blue wave as much as you would like it to happen. The right is just that much better at getting their message out than the left will ever be. It's much easier when you can just make stuff up and lie about everything that is verifiably false and your base eats it up. You can't counter that, at least they have shown no concept of being able to yet.
- thrance 1y ago
  > The right is just that much better at getting their message out than the left will ever be. Absolutely true of the democrats, not so much of the actual left. Look at Mamdani's meteoric rise in the NYC mayoral primaries. Granted, it was in a very progressive city but still.
SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
I am absolutely a single issue voter, for as long as Trump is alive, on who will promise the most punishment for him and everyone associated with him for their misdeeds.
almosthere 1y ago
[flagged]
thrance 1y ago
That's part of an obvious winning strategy, but the establishment is too stupid and weak to notice that hate and resentment are the main drivers of modern politics. Instead, they'll keep trying to "build bridges" and "seek bipartisanship" with a group of people that cheer on the murder of one of them [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/melissa-hortman-mike-lee-minnesota https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/melissa-hort...

SpicyLemonZest 1y ago

Ridiculous that this got flagged. Do people think that Trump rewriting laws to suit his whim isn't going to become relevant to their own companies and projects?

thrance 1y ago
They still believe they're in the in-group maybe? Or they're just that ideologically captive.
mandmandam 1y ago
Honestly, no, it's not the least bit surprising that this was flagged. It's a damn-near inevitable consequence of letting anyone on the internet flag things. What's truly ridiculous (though not surprising [0]) is that it still hasn't been white listed by HN moderators. They're the ones who bear responsibility for this major story being suppressed. 0 - Growing list of recent falsely flagged stories here: https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=mandmandam https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=mandmandam
myvoiceismypass 1y ago
Not so ridiculous when you realize who runs this site.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  I'd expect them to be especially interested! It's virtually certain that some number of YC companies over the next four years will find themselves in a similar position to TikTok over the next four years, wondering whether they can get away with bribing Trump to rewrite a law in their favor.
itsdrewmiller 1y ago
I don't think it's ridiculous that it got flagged - it's only superficially about technology, and is instead mostly about general US politics. Many people don't think HN is the place to discuss general US politics. (I wouldn't personally flag it since it doesn't seem like it's already all over multiple news sites.)

cosmicgadget 1y ago

> In letters to companies like Apple and Google, Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his “constitutional duties,” so the law banning the social media app must give way to his “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.” This is like tariff negotiations with the whole world being about a fentanyl emergency. I can't wait to hear oral arguments on this in 2027 after this supposed power is temporarily upheld from the shadow docket.

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]