Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

Russia banned tiktok and instagram etc. in early 2022. Curious to hear about just how that improved everyone's lives.

Maybe the "real national security risks" of funny dance or cat clips and pictures of your last meal were slightly exaggerated after all?

(Edit: A shorter way to express my thoughts is simply that when we ask a question like "What should we do about foreign propaganda in social media", we should have a legal framework that allows us to explore all possible costs and benefits, not one that just says "Nothing, because an amendment forbids any government action on it").

My opinion (and that's all this is): When it comes to politics and laws, we should not be dealing with oversimplified binary absolutes, especially when those absolutes were defined by ancient minorities who lived in very different times.

It's not just a binary yes/no, we can or cannot trust the government (or the people, or the media, or anyone). The law should be nuanced enough to deal with exceptional circumstances and evolving societies, not be held back by the summarized opinions of people long dead -- opinions that, however well-intended originally, were later weaponized by cynical oligarchs who put their own interests over that of the country's.

Specifically, when it comes to the Constitution, it was a good idea to enshrine a check and balance against federal government overreach. However, the amendment process is so difficult it may as well not exist, leading to both an overly prescriptive 1A and other issues (like an ambiguous 2A, rights to privacy, etc.)

In my mind, free speech shouldn't be an absolute, but a value we both hold in very high regard most of time, but also know when to temper for the sake of national sanctity -- especially when it comes to things like foreign propaganda or similarly powerful broadcasters.

As an example only, if the 1A were more nuanced and allowed less drastic measures than outright censorship, for example, we could perhaps enact labeling laws for political propaganda on social media, or have truth in political advertising laws, etc. Or, you know, just not have Citizens United because it's terrible policy, despite (or maybe because of) it's 1A implications.

Another example: If the 2A were more nuanced, gun ownership could be both more responsible and less tribal, and something as simple as registration needn't elicit panicked doomsday responses.

It's not that I care about TikTok per se, but what's more terrifying to me than the CCP is that the entire USA is held captive by nine old farts who can interpret and redefine these archaic passages on their whims, with zero checks and balances, and that there are only two shitty parties that appoint them as a tug-of-war game every few years, all without regard to the citizens.

Who should we trust to do this? Nobody and everybody -- as in, my ideal government would be far more democratic and far less elitist, with everything up to and including the Constitution itself subject to public reviews and referendums. Yes, politicians are corrupt and people are dumb, but at the same time, these situations can self-correct over sufficient time if the process allows it. It took France several revolutions, Germany several world wars, the UK multiple lost colonies, etc. to get the societies they have today. We should keep changing too.

My underlying concern is more about Constitutional originalism and other forms of legal fundamentalism overriding the democratic will of the governed. We shouldn't be held hostage by what previous generations of politicians said; we must be able to evolve laws as society itself evolves. This doesn't really happen anymore, especially when one party in particular has a vested interest in using faux traditionalism as a dog whistle.

I don't see this as double-speak. It's only because our Constitution is so old and written so tersely that we are forced to be tribal and take sides for everything in it. In reality, legal situations are never this black and white, and it shouldn't be solely up to an unelected and increasingly corrupt body of judges to interpret our most important laws.

There should be no interpretation because those are the axioms of our law right now. I would argue the only way to change it to allow censorship would be to call a constitutional convention to change it. Adding patches to law hasn’t been working great lately due to complexity. I’d you want to change the first amendment, then you have to amend the constitution, not as laws that are in violation of the amendment. Just because they’re old axioms doesn’t mean they are obsolete!

> what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al

Facebook et all aren't subject to CCP control.

> their voice cannot compete with institution-sponsored propaganda machines

When has the common person alone ever had the voice to compete with large institutional voices? I think never, except today it’s actually easier for a lone person to get a huge platform without owning a newspaper.

Suppose we pass laws allowing the executive branch to limit speech that’s against national security. Who is to say a future government won’t use it against us to limit our freedoms rather than a foreign agent’s? We already can see several laws passed to limit terrorism have instead allowed the government to spy on regular citizens and other such abuses. Now, in the name of “national security” we want to move away from free speech and start censoring things according to the current administration’s wishes? No thank you!