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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

As other commenters have said, the GP's argument is not about free speech but about trade.

Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms. If someone makes a video of a TikTok video and shares it on Youtube/Whatsapp, that's legal. The actual content is legal, so it's not a free speech/censorship issue.

This is the equivalent of "We've put sanctions on China. You can write whatever you want, as long as you don't do it using Chinese pens and Chinese paper"

It's not at all unusual for countries (including the US) to restrict commerce with a country if they believe the other country isn't engaging in fair commerce.

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What I find troubling about this is the delta between the vox populi and the decision made.

Whether it's right or prudent or whatever, if you figure that people using the service don't want it shut down (~170M or roughly half of the population) then what's happening here is that our "representatives" are doing what they always do and totally ignoring their constituency.

Mind you, this isn't surprising in the least, but perhaps it's a good moment to step back and reflect a little on this snag in our governance.

I think a lot of this is the language used in reporting around it. It is presented as a Ban on Tiktok in headlines and people who regurgitate them when the purpose of the legislation is not to ban Tiktok but require them to sell their American operations to a domestic company. The penalty for non-compliance is to not allow them to operate in the US but the goal isn't to ban Tiktok.

Representatives are elected to do "what's right". If their constituents don't like it, they can elect them out.

Can they, though? I've been trying for about as long as I can remember without much luck...

> Can they, though? I've been trying for about as long as I can remember without much luck...

A sign that the constituents don't care about a given issue the way you do.

That's a gross oversimplification, and I think you know it. We're not idiots here.

On any given year in the last decade, about 1/3 (sometimes more, sometimes less) of voters have been registered independent. George Washington was the last independent president.

We take for granted that campaign promises are there to be reneged on. Even assuming legitimate alignment with a given candidate (that is, that they are genuine about representing you), this more or less means you're not getting what's on the label.

It's well known that unless you live in one of like 6 states your vote won't affect the outcome of a presidential race. Those states tend to have lower populations.

The system is broken, and it has been for a long time. The number of things that get between your vote and the implementation of policy are enough to ensure that your voice is unimportant - whether this is by accident or design is another conversation but I haven't yet seen a reasonable argument that what we have is even remotely functional. I'm open to hearing one if you have it.

Except this is not about commerce. US wants to ban TikTok for the same reason Russia has blocked BBC. Russia believes that information from BBC can harmfully influence people's mind.

Funny, Telegraph readers also seem to believe that the BBC can harmfully influence people's minds.

I think it's more about Chinese harvesting data.

I hope you are aware that Tiktok doesn't generate content by itself? A comparison with BBC is stupid.

> Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms.

Yes, it does impinge free speech. It's not about being able to say things, it's about freedom to hear speech. The first amendment and freedom of speech also covers that, and there is speech on Tik Tok that is not available elsewhere.

As I said, they are not banning listening to the speech on Tik Tok videos. If someone makes a mirror of all TikTok videos and posts it on Peertube, it is totally fine to listen to it.

They are banning one delivery mechanism. Not the content.

By this logic, when Howl was banned from publication, you could argue it wasn't a problem. If Ginsberg performed Howl in public it would be fine. They were just banning one delivery mechanism, his press

I don't think courts will see it that way, but if the ban happens I guess we'll see.

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