1A protects us against censorship, and this law is precisely that. If I have TikTok and I use it to communicate, the government is censoring my speech by taking it down. There is a lot of case law on when the government can legally censor speech, and I’m not going to repeat it here, but the government’s lawyers have a massive hill to climb on this one. Maybe they can succeed, maybe not.
There’s other precedent about “making a specific business illegal”. Essentially, legislatures can make conduct illegal, but courts don’t like it when they make businesses illegal, because it’s a violation of due process. But this is complicated and detail-specific.
Anyway, there’s a lot of great information online about these two legal arguments. I encourage you to look it up.
But again, you can make that argument about any platform or medium where speech can be posted or displayed. If the department of public health condemns a local movie theater where I host indie movie screenings, that is not a violation of my first amendment rights because they are not prohibiting my ability to make or share content, they are simply removing the space it is currently shared. If that comes out to the same effect for some people who are all-in on TikTok to the exclusion of any other short-form video sharing service, sure, maybe there are grievances. But that still ends up being a self-imposition made by the individual at the end of the day.
Not to mention, the US government is not trying to close down TikTok. They are prohibiting the owners of TikTok from doing business in the US. The company itself would be the one to make the decision to close the service rather than sell it off, so unless the fed is going to force a private business to keep itself open to placate the masses, it’s a decision made by a private company outside of any constitutional law.
Exactly. All censorship could be a violation of 1A. The bar is high on this one. The government has to jump through difficult hoops to legally suppress most speech. The courts have long since ruled against the “but they have other channels” argument that you propose.
As for the latter point, again you miss the legal argument. The government is targeting a company, and not conduct. That could easily be a Due Process violation.
Of course we don’t know. The courts will rule. But what you wrote ignores basic legal precedent.
1A protects us against censorship, and this law is precisely that. If I have TikTok and I use it to communicate, the government is censoring my speech by taking it down. There is a lot of case law on when the government can legally censor speech, and I’m not going to repeat it here, but the government’s lawyers have a massive hill to climb on this one. Maybe they can succeed, maybe not.
There’s other precedent about “making a specific business illegal”. Essentially, legislatures can make conduct illegal, but courts don’t like it when they make businesses illegal, because it’s a violation of due process. But this is complicated and detail-specific.
Anyway, there’s a lot of great information online about these two legal arguments. I encourage you to look it up.
But again, you can make that argument about any platform or medium where speech can be posted or displayed. If the department of public health condemns a local movie theater where I host indie movie screenings, that is not a violation of my first amendment rights because they are not prohibiting my ability to make or share content, they are simply removing the space it is currently shared. If that comes out to the same effect for some people who are all-in on TikTok to the exclusion of any other short-form video sharing service, sure, maybe there are grievances. But that still ends up being a self-imposition made by the individual at the end of the day.
Not to mention, the US government is not trying to close down TikTok. They are prohibiting the owners of TikTok from doing business in the US. The company itself would be the one to make the decision to close the service rather than sell it off, so unless the fed is going to force a private business to keep itself open to placate the masses, it’s a decision made by a private company outside of any constitutional law.
Exactly. All censorship could be a violation of 1A. The bar is high on this one. The government has to jump through difficult hoops to legally suppress most speech. The courts have long since ruled against the “but they have other channels” argument that you propose.
As for the latter point, again you miss the legal argument. The government is targeting a company, and not conduct. That could easily be a Due Process violation.
Of course we don’t know. The courts will rule. But what you wrote ignores basic legal precedent.