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Comment by ThisIsMyAltAcct | Hacker News Reader

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

This level of censorship isn't good, it's very bad. It's also concerning the speed at which the government mobilized to do this. It's a rapid crackdown on free speech and individual freedom.

> censorship

Nothing is being censored. If ByteDance refuses to sell, TikTok will be removed from App Stores and have to find new web hosting. TikTok.com will still resolve fine.

> Nothing is being censored. If ByteDance refuses to sell, TikTok will be removed from App Stores

What if Google says no?

> What if Google says no?

Same as if Google says no to paying taxes. Law enforcement mediated by the courts.

The fines end up being in the billions of dollars - $5,000 per user per day. Even Google can't absorb that for long.

Could you help me understand how that isn't censorship, with more steps?

> Could you help me understand how that isn't censorship

Censorship bans the speech. If we were censoring Bytedance, we’d block TikTok.com.

This is more in the vein of “you can’t advertise your brothel at the elementary school.” You can still advertise your brothel. The distribution and amplification is just being regulated.

If we stretch your argument to absurd then we can say that putting a political prisoner in jail also doesn't limit his free speech: he is still able to write letters.

> putting a political prisoner in jail also doesn't limit his free speech: he is still able to write letters

Free speech is a big topic. I would argue that yes, that person’s speech has been curtailed, but depending on what they were jailed for (saying something offensive versus stabbery) it could be reasonable.

Unless they were jailed for their speech, what you describe would not amount to censorship.

Because it's not targeting the speech. If an American company acquires TikTok it can continue to provide exactly the same content.

Trump tried to do this 4 years ago, how is that a "concerning" level of speed? The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing Tik Tok's Project Texas initiative to handle US data separately for 2 years. This was not an out of the blue move. The citation for those claims are in the linked article.

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