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Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

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101–110 of 146 posts

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#101

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

I appreciate a response like this on HN.

IF there is a problem, let's solve the root issue (which may include looking at the algo feeds of all big tech, etc).

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decision to ban Colorado from making its own decisions for its own election with regard to what "engaged in insurrection" means and therefore disqualifies someone from their own state's ballots. Purely political. The law says clearly that states run their own elections and it says clearly that insurrection is disqualifying. Would've been politically inconvenient though (for either side of the spectrum, and especi…

That's actually one of the ones that shows how the supreme court isn't always party lines. That was an 9-0 opinion to block Colorado from stopping Trump from running for office there. Also the constitution clearly gives the federal government the ability to conduct federal elections, not states, and that's exactly what they called out in their brief.

The question wasn't about party lines. It's about the distinction between political judgment and legal judgment.

That has nothing to do with partisanship.

> Also the constitution clearly gives the federal government the ability to conduct federal elections

This is literally not true. Please tell me where in the Constitution the federal government is given this authority. You won't find it, which is why all the contortions around federal authority are political in nature and not legal.

The states run 100% of 100% of the elections within their states, including the elections of the electors in the Electoral College who ultimately elect the President.

The entire opinion (and the misconception that it produces, and you relay here) is a handwavy way to say: it sure would be politically inconvenient if the legal structure actually produced this outcome. If it were a legal decision, the political considerations would be irrelevant: the law says what the law says.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#105
From the ACLU amicus brief (linked in the article)

> Although the D.C. Circuit ostensibly applied strict scrutiny in upholding the ban, it subjected the government’s assertions to little genuine scrutiny in the end

Does the author understand checks-and-balances? The DC Circuit found that Congress did a lot to try to investigate and come to an agreement with Bytedance that would resolve their concerns. After all that, it's Congress' power to decide what to do, not the courts. They are not just allowed to second-guess congress. They can only look at the "how" of the law, the "why" is largely non-justiciable. And if the goal is to stop CCP speech, through the TikTok algo, then there's really nothing to do other than ban TikTok.

Personally I think the ban is xenophobic and we should instead regulate ALL of these apps (X, Meta...) but it is legal

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually one of the ones that shows how the supreme court isn't always party lines. That was an 9-0 opinion to block Colorado from stopping Trump from running for office there. Also the constitution clearly gives the federal government the ability to conduct federal elections, not states, and that's exactly what they called out in their brief.

The question wasn't about party lines. It's about the distinction between political judgment and legal judgment. That has nothing to do with partisanship. > Also the constitution clearly gives the federal government the ability to conduct federal elections This is literally not true. Please tell me where in the Constitution the federal government is given this authority. You won't find it, which is why all the contor…

>This is literally not true. Please tell me where in the Constitution the federal government is given this authority. You won't find it, which is why all the contortions around federal authority are political in nature and not legal.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/sectio...

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/sectio...

Section 5 gives congress the power, not the state, to enforce section 3.

If you want to say you were right that it's an amendment, ok.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Well, it does offer an avenue for inacting some form of ban. And not so sure it's all that morally low. Because what China's ban of US social media might say is that China recognizes social-media's power to influence the populace (think Russia's use of Twitter and FB in the 2016 election). Yeah, am actually in favor of some form of restrictions, because we as a country need to realize that social media is a tool that…

If social media is so bad let's regulate ALL of it, US firms included.

Personally I fear US-controlled social media more than Sino-controlled ones. It's not like the CCP can come and arrest me here in the US, or really use my data against me in any way. Both have plenty of reasons to throw propaganda at me, or censor certain viewpoints.

At least when it's a foreign country I have a chance of seeing through it, compared to so many domestic media sources currently licking Trump's feet. I'm supposed to feel secure that they'll be telling me the truth over the next 4 years? Acting in my interest?

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#108
post #86
post #68

Banning citizens from using the app seems unconstitutional, but is preventing the the company ByteDance to operate inside the US unconstitutional? Those two seems like two completely different questions even if the outcome is similar. From a EU perspective, regulating what companies do is not in conflict at all with human rights. The privilege to operate a company, provide advertisement, sell products and services, t…

Really? From my reading of it, it seems to focus how such a ban would inhibit the speech of US citizens who use the application, not TikTok as an entity.

Regulation that dictate how a company may operate will naturally inhibit the consumers if the regulations is so heavy that the company will no longer exist. That doesn't mean such regulation is impossible.

The ban does not say that US citizens are not allowed to use the application (or apply speech). The method of the ban is similar to those blocking torrent sites, as in blocking them on an ISP level.

ISP already operating a fairly large block lists, both in the US and EU, blocking everything from pirate sites, scam sites, and more serious criminal ventures. The legal frame work generally do not talk about users (outside of deep packet inspection territory). They simply get applied more like industry regulation. It should be noted that the 1965 case has not prevented ISP block lists, and I would assume that the long list of pirate cases where ISP has objected to block lists in the last 30+ years has thoroughly tested the 1965 case. We can also look at the very recent net neutrality situation, where ISP has very much been defined as something very different from the postal service.

As a minor aspect being said in articles describing the ban, the ban would not prevent users from accessing the app if its already installed. As an ISP block it would break the functionality of the app, and new users would only get a spinning bar when trying to download it, but citizens would not be legally bound by the ban. That is mostly semantics but there is a legal distinction.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#109

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

[deleted]

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#110
post #67
post #2

First, let me preface that I despise TikTok and I think it is mostly garbage content-wise, however this proposal is simply un-American. Concerns about data privacy and foreign influence are legit, but banning an entire communication platform used by 170 million Americans based on hypothetical threats goes against core First Amendment principles especially considering the government's inability to provide concrete evi…

It's not a ban, it's a forced divestment from Chinese ownership. The real question is why Bytedance isn't willing to take fair market value for Tiktok instead of just losing everything, since that makes no sense if this was just "business" and there weren't ulterior motives involved.

If I owned a business in another country and that other country coerced me to sell against my wishes, I'd be very skeptical about receiving the proceeds from the sale.

So TikTok sells to a domestic company, domestic company wants to wire over $40bn to ByteDance but before the transfer goes through the Treasury Department decides a $40bn payment shouldn't be sent to a "foreign adversary". It's my understanding that the Treasury has a lot of leeway in this.

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