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Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

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611–620 of 1001 posts

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#611
post #296

I'd love to see what a global ban for TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, and X would look like. Even better: massive breakdown of iOS and Android installations. Just for a couple of weeks, then revert to the nightmarish status quo we live in. Now that would be an interesting experiment. The change in people's behavior would be palpable for those fourteen days, I bet. It'd be so much fun.

People would just switch to a different service.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#613

My wife and I are split on this, though neither of us are regular TikTok users. I keep coming across elected officials who are apparently briefed on something about TikTok, and they decide there’s a reasonable threat regarding the CCP or some such. The idea that the CCP could drive our national conversation somehow (still murky) bothers me. My wife feels like this is the US Government trying to shut down a communicat…

They make up lies that they tell them in the SCIF.

It's just theater.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#614

If US users continue to use the app via VPN, will that hinder the CCPs ability to weaponize it? If so, this outcome may be a good middle ground.

The whole thing with social media is network effects though. The added friction of a VPN, though small, is just so much larger than "click download, open app"

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#615
post #225

In a more functional democracy we would see that mass data collection of any sort, by any company (foreign or domestic), is a national security risk. Have witnessed first-hand the threats by foreign state actors penetrating US-based cloud infrastructure. And it’s not like any of our domestic corporations are practicing the type of security hygiene necessary to prevent those intrusions. So idk, the whole thing feels l…

Claiming that “mass data collection” by our own government is inherently a natural security risk is not an assertion based on rational evidence.

It's absolutely a risk because these databases are unregulated honey pots. They're a total liability

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#617

But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA. Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA. What changed now? Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the Government can say to someone…

>But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling?

Apparently the owners of the operation are not US citizens operating in the USA and don't have any first amendment rights because that's part of the US Constitution and doesn't apply to other countries.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#618
post #529

But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA. Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA. What changed now? Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the Government can say to someone…

The replies here seem slightly off base. The Court acknowledges that 1s amm. free speech issues are at play. A law can regulate non-expressive activity (corporate ownership) while still burdening expressive activity, which is the case here. In such instances, the Court grants Congress more leeway compared to laws explicitly targeting speech. It checks that (1) the govt has an important interest unrelated to speech (i…

My reading of it is they didn't bother to take the motivation of the law into account (suppression of speech), and only took the law "as written" to decide.

> We need not decide whether that exclusion is content based. The question be- fore the Court is whether the Act violates the First Amend- ment as applied to petitioners. To answer that question, we look to the provisions of the Act that give rise to the effective TikTok ban that petitioners argue burdens their First Amendment rights...

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#619

But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA. Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA. What changed now? Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the Government can say to someone…

There weren't any laws passed banning Soviet associated agencies from publishing based on chain of ownership. Nothing to do with SCOTUS. Read the opinion, the law was upheld on intermediate scrutiny. It doesn't ban based on content, it bans based on the designation of the foreign parent as an adversary. Since it's not a content ban, or rather because it's a content-neutral ban, strict scrutiny does not apply. Without…

The motivation was based on content, so the actual text of the law shouldn't matter. Such acts have been overturned before (see the Muslim ban) based on motivation.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#620

But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA. Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA. What changed now? Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the Government can say to someone…

The justices said this was not about first amendment. It was about security and securing the users in the country

And what specifically is causing the security issue. Is it speech?
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