Comment by kjellsbells | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kjellsbells | Hacker News Reader

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Agree, but (and yes, whataboutism ahoy!) one can make observations about a similar lack or principle on the right.

It always seemed to me that the US was fuzzy when the very clear text of the Constitution rubbed up against the realities of a complex State. For example,

- the 1st Amendment doesnt say the speech can be overridden by a compelling national security interest, which is the argument here. But the US has security services, and legitimately there are cases where to allow speech does harm. But if you are going to be honest, shouldnt there be an amendment giving the State an override of 1A?

- 2A is infamous, of course, and for the love of $deity lets not discuss it here, but why does "not abridged" get overriden by bans in, say, machine guns, which have been on the books since the Chicago gangster era? Either you abridge or not. Or at least be honest about it .

- Some speakers in the covid era made a very strong appeal to personal bodily autonomy when it came to vaccine mandates. Ok, let's follow that. Does it not then also follow that a woman cannot be forced to carry a baby to term? That would seem logical, but the connection is not made. Conversely there is no "commonweal" override written into the Constitution and we are left with random SCOTUS decisions over the last 240 years.

> the 1st Amendment doesnt say the speech can be overridden by a compelling national security interest, which is the argument here.

No it isn't. The argument here is that it isn't a restriction on speech at all.

The government can fine American companies for carrying certain content but it's not a 1st Amendment issue? Why are people buying this lame argument?

Because the people 250 years ago could not have imagined the problems that we'd have invented for ourselves in these days. It was always meant to be a living document with a process of adding and changing amendments. And in between that time the the way people interact has grown more complex. If you took those same intelligent men and dropped them into today, the Amendments would look different.

If only they made a process to change it…

Good luck amending the constitution these days. We can't even pass an amendment that says that women have the same rights as men.

An amendment process that in practice is impossible to exercise is just as good as having no amendment process at all.

That’s not an excuse for circumventing it, obviously.

Because it's not the content but rather the company behind it. The exact same .apk would be allowed if ByteDance divested.

> The government can fine American companies for carrying certain content

No, and no one is saying they can. The law says American companies can't do business with a certain foreign-owned company.

It is beyond settled in law that this is something that the US government can do.

It’s not a certain company, it’s a whole class of them (partially defined by POTUS’ whims)

Sure, the government can do that, and when doing so infringes on Americans’ speech or access to information, it introduces First Amendment questions that must be addressed.

“The government says CNN can’t post stories from BBC” isn’t immediately resolved by “it’s a foreign company.”

> when doing so infringes on Americans’ speech or access to information

But this doesn't do that. Everything that Americans could post or watch on TikTok, they're still allowed to post or watch anywhere else.

Just like everything that a reader might find in NYTimes, they could also find on Fox News!

It sounds like you're saying that there's some content on TikTok that Instagram Reels/YouTube Shorts/etc. won't allow on their platforms. Is that correct? If so, can you give an example?

Since when is that the test?

Is the government allowed to shut down Harvard because the same classes can be taken at ASU?

Both of these I suspect are handled sorta explicitly by giving the state the power to do whatever it wants if it is important and essential enough.

The courts have various categories for how important something needs to be to allow certain levels of unconstitutionality, eg suppose I have "legally" built the nuclear device featured in a recent kurgesatz video with enough kiloton to start by itself a nuclear winter kill every person on the planet... I seriously suspect SCOTUS will be ok with the state taking the ignition keys away from me

"for the love of $deity lets not discuss it here" - good idea, and why not take your own advice.

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