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Comment by bluedays | Hacker News Reader

I always wondered how we squared disallowing things like WeChat and TikTok with freedom of speech. This whole thing feels a bit hyperbolic. Is there real danger lurking around the corner if we allow people to shit post on TikTok, for instance? Genuinely curious here.

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The danger lies in letting a foreign government controll the communication of americans.

But for me as a german, I actually neither want the chinese, nor the US-government (nor the german government) to controll my communication.

I also want neither but if one must, I'd choose the US government to monitor my communication, a thousand-fold over Chinese surveillence :)

The US government has the ability to make my life absolutely miserable. The Chinese government doesn’t without invading the US. So I’d much prefer Chinese surveillance since it’s inconsequential to me.

It hardly seems like this is what is happening, though.

It's an app for crying out loud. No one is "controlling communication of Americans" through an app.

Propaganda is wildly effective, the medium is largely irrelevant.

Maybe not, but manipulating emotions is proven to have happened, and that seems pretty dangerous. Then it's the next mental hop to having the gov push their agenda that way.

So prior restraint on speech? Not going to fly.

The laws involved are all about banning financial transactions - people sending money to ByteDance.

IMO those laws are being abused in this case to suppress speech, but the laws themselves had a legitimate purpose.

Trump abusing laws? Say it ain't so!

As someone who fervently supports freedom of speech my stance is all bets are off when you have a known bad actor in the room. The PRC will use this data to sensor and oppress, full stop.

So you want one more actor to censor and double penetrate? Makes sense!

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