Would you let Putin run Fox News? How about Kim Jong None running CNN?
both of those combine have less reach than TikTok. Candidly our services aren't allowed free rein in china, why are we extending them the same grace?
There is no world where TikTok should have been allowed to even go this far.... Now if it was a UK/DE... even a Japanese company we would be having a different conversation.
https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli...
Were not limiting any ones right to speak, were restricting who can own a platform, and excluding a foreign government. Nothing about that in the constitution.
Would any of those countries let us run a service with the same scale or influence in their borders? (Is there any non state media in those countries).
You're comparing the banality of "corporate evil" to actual evil.
I have no words.
Sorry, what are you talking avout? How "far" is far? How TikTok is different from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Probably because Twitter, Facebook, Instagram is US based, so they by definition is good?
That's for real one of the two main reasons being given to force the sale of TikTok. It sounds insane because it is. It's also isolationist, supremacist, deeply unconstitutional and categorically stupid. 'You will eat only the info we allow you' has never lead anywhere smart.
The other reason begin floated is because TikTok has been showing young people what Israel are doing with the unflinching rock-hard support of damn near our entire Congress. Also categorically insane. Also deeply supremacist and unconstitutional.
67% of Americans support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, compared to just 11% of Congress.That's a hell of a disparity.
TikTok pierced corporate and social media's veil, so they are being explicitly treated as a threat to 'US interests' (read: the interests of the international ultra-wealthy).
You should look up the laws around television. This concept is not without precedent.
https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli...
That doesn't make it right.
> deeply unconstitutional
It is not this, where does the constitution enshrine anything for a foreign power operating on American soil?
> categorically stupid
By what measure and for what reason? We did not ban TikTok, we did not remove byte dances ability to profit from it. We just required that the company that is controlled by a foreign nation sell its controlling interest in a massive media company.... Unlike china where FB/Google... etc are banned outright.
> It is not this, where does the constitution enshrine anything for a foreign power operating on American soil?
By default, TikTok users have a First Amendment right to use a communication platform controlled by a foreign power. National security can override such a right, but the federal government hasn't declassified it's evidence of TikTok's supposed national security threat.
This law changes nothing for US TikTok users.
The users who have a million followers or make money using TikTok are expecting that the sale doesn't happen. In the best light, the TikTok forced sale will be constitutional if it succeeds (i.e. results in a forced sale) and will be unconstitutional if it fails (i.e. results in a ban). But even assuming that a sale will happen (and putting aside the burden of demonstrating that "this law changes nothing"), two things would change. In the short term (i.e. during the transition), I would expect interruptions in the content moderation at best (temporary increase in posts in violation of TikTok's rules). In the long term, I expect the change in managing personnel to change the content moderation, including the recommendation algorithm. Users of post-sale TikTok will receive different information than they did from pre-sale TikTok.
Lamont v. Postmaster General confirmed a First Amendment right for a US citizen to receive foreign propaganda in the mail without needing to tell the government "I consent to receiving foreign propaganda". If such a simple burden as having to write a sentence to the federal government to receive foreign propaganda violates the First Amendment, then surely the temporary degradation of TikTok's service (of uncertain length from the average TikTok user's perspective) in the course of a forced sale would violate the First Amendment as well.
Less rigorously, I suspect that the TikTok forced sale is unconstitutional (relating to "deprived of life, liberty, or property" in the Fifth Amendment), since the US employees at TikTok's US office will have uncertain job security.
Note: When I say "unconstitutional" I mean in the context of "so long as the federal government refuses to declassify its evidence that TikTok is a national security threat".
This move is not without president. Look up the law on foreign ownership of traditional media... extending it to the web in this case, is a no brainer.
To be precise I believe that China's requirements were mostly around using local datacenters and respecting censors, the US is actually going a step further even if only because it is ashamed of how much it needs to censors its warcrimes.
> Look up the law on foreign ownership of traditional media
The traditional media was an oligopoly and a very important gatekeeper of information. The internet is both of those things but in a less exclusive fashion.