ACLU Strongly Opposes House Bill That Would Ban TikTok | Hacker News Reader

ACLU Strongly Opposes House Bill That Would Ban TikTok

aclu.org

25 pointsmfiguiere26 comments

I've been seeing so many civil liberties issues and violations in recent years. Often it has been the Institute for Justice or the Innocence Project legislating these issues. The only issue I have seen the ACLU speak up on was the dispute between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard - Infamously on the side for Amber Heard.

So it is extremely confusing to see the ACLU come out against this TikTok ban, which is more of a foreign policy issue than a civil rights issue. What is the point of the ACLU in modern times, if these are the lines it draws in the sand?

Why would the ACLU speak up on Amber Heard's side? It seemed pretty obvious that she was the worse party there, but still it was basically a domestic dispute, not a civil liberties issue.

I honestly don't understand myself, but here's an article in the Atlantic about it [0] as well as the ACLU's take [1].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn...

[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/what-you-need-to-k...

Because the aclu today is not what it once was.

An older, more powerful and wealthier man, yes I'm sure he could have done nothing wrong. Mind you the UK found him completely at fault. Only the US found her in majority of fault.

The problem Amber had was she didn't fit the perfect victim stereotype people see on TV. Abused people don't always remain totally cool and collected, big surprise. Judges are (usually) able to grasp this, amateur juries less so.

I dread how many thousands of women now the whole thing had a chilling effect on. Don't talk about your abuse! Even if you don't mention your abuser's name! He will still sue you and America will decide that you're the bad person in it! Freedom of speech? Hell no, not when it's one of those whiny women folk!

I found the publicized evidence fairly overwhelming in Johnys favor.

Now I don't follow celebrity worship very closely, but it seemed like mainstream media was in support af Amber until very late in the process, and once Johny's evidence was public, there wasn't much of a case left...

Since you seem to be in opposition of the popular opinion of this forum at least, do you have any insights you could share that clarify how Amber was the innocent victim, or is your stance more in support of women than in support of fair evidence based trials?

Depp was neither more powerful nor more wealthy when the US trial took place - he had already been shunned in Hollywood and his finances ruined by Heard’s defamation.

I think it’s a great triumph of the American legal system that an underdog that had already lost in the court of public opinion was able to prevail legally and take back their lives from their abuser. Not to mention that the whole world now knows that Amber Heard is a filthy liar. It’s she who has set back victims, not the justice system or Depp.

I dont understand the argument that it would hurt first amendment rights. There are so many alternatives, reels, shorts, twitter and reddit have their own version.

Thats like saying banning facebook messenger hurts first amendment rights. It doesnt, I can simply use another app that is the exact same thing.

"Why does banning 1984 hurt first amendment rights? There are so many other books you can read."

> "Why does banning 1984 hurt first amendment rights? There are so many other books you can read."

Banning 1984 would violate the First Amendment because it would be banning a certain point of view. Banning TikTok is about preventing a foreign government from owning an information pipeline, not about the point of view that's being pushed on it.

Anyway, all the people who claim to be concerned about the First Amendment should be marching in the streets over what's happening in Florida, not trying to save TikTok.

Florida? I wouldn't worry about it. Things like blogger registration and anything else that affects adults won't survive even a preliminary court challenge. It's just DeSantis trying to brand himself.

The difference is banning content vs banning a medium.

Its like if there was an e-reader that sat in your living room spying on you, but it displayed books for free. Banning that device is not the same as banning content itself.

Banning TikTok, which can be seen as a tool for the Chinese government to actively collect data in real time about American citizens, and a static book like 1984, is absolutely not the same.

Plenty of books are seen as foreign propaganda tools. In some cases they explicitly are that. This still doesn't give the government the right to ban them.

> This still doesn't give the government the right to ban them.

The government has a long history of regulating the transmission of speech. The First Amendment protects us against them regulating the content of speech.

For example, campaign finance laws dictate who can fund speech in certain situations, but they don't dictate what a candidate actually says.

That said, the First Amendment is limited by "compelling government interest," so there are no absolutes. We are, as we have been for a few centuries, at the mercy of the whims of the Supreme Court. There are no absolutes, and the Supreme Court can interpret anything however they want.

If there was a book that told the Chinese government about me when I read it I would want that book banned.

There's a world of difference between a writing which may have "dangerous ideas" (in someone's opinion), and a communications tool which actively spies on its users.

> a communications tool which actively spies on its users

Google, Facebook, etc all do that, and it's their entire business model.

Yeah, so what? The OP was comparing these things to banning books. What's your point?

My point is there's something wrong with targeting TikTok for "spying." I wouldn't compare this to banning books.

It's not the same, but it shows why the argument that "there are alternatives" doesn't hold water.

But there is a lot of information currently on TikTok that would be rendered inaccessible to you if it was banned. It is both a medium and a source/repository of content.

So then banning the speech of one individual doesn’t harm first amendment rights. Because another individual could say the exact same thing.

Yeah, if it were a 1A issue, they'd have been all over Twitter 1.0 and Facebook 1.0 when they were censoring proponents of Lab escape theory and Ivermectin and so many other issues where they were kind of looking down at their feet whistling.

I don't think they are about civil liberties in general any more. It's more they advocate for some civil liberties they currently support.

A private company regulating the private speech on its privately owned social network is not a First Amendment issue. In fact it is precisely the sort of thing that the First Amendment exists to protect.

Facebook and Twitter are not constrained by the First Amendment. The First Amendment exists as an umbrella under which they can do whatever they want.

In this case the federal government (which is constrained by the First Amendment) is the one proposing to ban an app—entirely. That is most definitely a First Amendment issue.

I disagree with a TikTok ban, but I don't see why 1A is the reason like ACLU claims.

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