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Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

But there are American users making and viewing content on that platform.

The physical equivalent would be if China was hosting a TED-talk-like conference where anyone can come and hold a presentation, and after certain kinds of talks became popular congress would tell them that they are no longer allowed to let Americans in, neither to hold presentations nor to listen to them.

Technically that doesn't violate the constitution, but it's not difficult to argue that it does violate the spirit of the constitution

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> But there are American users making and viewing content on that platform.

Those Americans can host the exact same content on youtube or any of the many other video hosting sites.

This is not a free speech issue, it is a megaphone issue.

Just as a thought experiment, take your reasoning and try to ban as much speech with as much specificity as you can. You can't ban the content of the speech but you can ban venues where speech takes place and and means of transmitting speech so long as at least one venue and means remains.

Making things harder is not separable from making things impossible.

That's true and that's actually something the courts consider. The standard is unreasonable burden. So it's not necessarily anything that makes speech harder, but if it does make speech unreasonably burdensome then it would run afoul of the first amendment.

So if the alternative places where such speech could be hosted were extremely limited, expensive or very difficult to use then the law banning a platform could create an unreasonable burden.

Suggesting that a shuttering of TikTok represents any impediment to your First Amendment rights — even if no comparable alternative existed — is to misunderstand what was promised by the Constitution.

Of course, plenty of comparable alternatives do exist.

It would be harder for me to learn piano if my teacher was convicted of murder.

For the sake of the one downvote, please allow me to complete the implied dialogue tree:

>>>> It would be harder for me to learn piano if my teacher was convicted of murder.

>>> Nonsense. You can easily find another piano teacher.

>> Right, just like people who use TikTok can easily find another short form video platform.

> That's a terrible analogy.

Nonsense. If TikTok was convicted and shut down because of rampant financial fraud, your First Amendment rights would be similarly unaffected.

TikTok was told to close because they refused to bring their corporate ownership in line with requirements set out in US Code passed by Congress. The content of any video was never at issue.

This make no sense, at all, in any context. Law enforcement, security, philosophy, competition, politics. None of it.

Correct, but requiring American content creators and consumers to move to a different platform (when those platforms are already large, have huge reach, and have low switching costs) would likely not meet the bar for an unreasonable burden. I don't think the courts would strike down this law on first amendment grounds.

> after certain kinds of talks became popular congress would tell them that they are no longer allowed to let Americans in,

I think if that were the situation then yes the first amendment would be in issue. But I don't think anyone is saying that this is happening here. As I understand it this has nothing to do with what anyone is saying on TikTok and there are no social or protest movements gaining ground on TikTok that the government is trying to suppress. The only issue here is the foreign ownership and how that ownership is used. I don't think anyone is saying the government is doing this to silence any TikTok users

An issue arises when popularity is manipulated through artificial boosting by an adversarial government.

At some point, it becomes State Propaganda masquerading as grassroots activists.

Control over content can influence and distort public discourse and understanding. This is also against the spirit of free expression envisioned in the constitution and instead injecting an intentionally divisive voice.

The physical equivalent would be if the Chinese intelligence apparatus opened an auditorium where they said "come sit here and let us read your mind and we will feed you what advances our national interest".

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