I could try to summarize it, but if you just do a web search for EFF and TikTok, you will come across a good explanation.
Of course we don’t know how the courts will rule. My belief is that the odds are in favor of TikTok and of TikTok users, but we’ll have to wait and find out.
The right for a business to operate is not protected by the first amendment, though.
I could use that argument to stop the government from closing/dismantling any physical space because I might use their walls to express my first amendment rights. But the argument just doesn’t hold up.
1A protects us against censorship, and this law is precisely that. If I have TikTok and I use it to communicate, the government is censoring my speech by taking it down. There is a lot of case law on when the government can legally censor speech, and I’m not going to repeat it here, but the government’s lawyers have a massive hill to climb on this one. Maybe they can succeed, maybe not.
There’s other precedent about “making a specific business illegal”. Essentially, legislatures can make conduct illegal, but courts don’t like it when they make businesses illegal, because it’s a violation of due process. But this is complicated and detail-specific.
Anyway, there’s a lot of great information online about these two legal arguments. I encourage you to look it up.
It’s not the right of the business, it’s the right of US citizens to consume media and information from any source they please. The Govt has no right to say “You can’t read that newspaper” or “You can’t listen to that speaker”, so they have no right to say “You can’t get information through this app”. The first amendment isn’t just about the right to speak, it’s also about the right to listen and research especially the stuff the government doesn’t want you to know about.
How is the law unconstitutional?
I could try to summarize it, but if you just do a web search for EFF and TikTok, you will come across a good explanation.
Of course we don’t know how the courts will rule. My belief is that the odds are in favor of TikTok and of TikTok users, but we’ll have to wait and find out.
I think the argument would be that if money is freedom of speech then so should surveillance capitalism
Restrict first amendment rights.
The right for a business to operate is not protected by the first amendment, though.
I could use that argument to stop the government from closing/dismantling any physical space because I might use their walls to express my first amendment rights. But the argument just doesn’t hold up.
1A protects us against censorship, and this law is precisely that. If I have TikTok and I use it to communicate, the government is censoring my speech by taking it down. There is a lot of case law on when the government can legally censor speech, and I’m not going to repeat it here, but the government’s lawyers have a massive hill to climb on this one. Maybe they can succeed, maybe not.
There’s other precedent about “making a specific business illegal”. Essentially, legislatures can make conduct illegal, but courts don’t like it when they make businesses illegal, because it’s a violation of due process. But this is complicated and detail-specific.
Anyway, there’s a lot of great information online about these two legal arguments. I encourage you to look it up.
It’s not the right of the business, it’s the right of US citizens to consume media and information from any source they please. The Govt has no right to say “You can’t read that newspaper” or “You can’t listen to that speaker”, so they have no right to say “You can’t get information through this app”. The first amendment isn’t just about the right to speak, it’s also about the right to listen and research especially the stuff the government doesn’t want you to know about.