Anyway, there's ways and means around getting tiktok from the app stores - especially thanks to efforts in European law that force both Apple and Android to open up their platforms so that consumers can do what they want with their devices.
You don't. This is not a legally protected right in any US jurisdiction. Period.
> This isn't about freedom of speech
Correct, because this isn't speech and "freedom of speech" does not mean what you think it does. The right to freedom of speech enumerated in the US constitution is generally interpreted to mean that the government cannot punish its citizens for speaking out against the government. That's really all you're guaranteed. This has nothing to do with censorship, and in fact censorship in general is quite accepted in US law. You quite plainly do not have the right to unrestricted access to any information you want. No law even suggests that. Just for starters, we regularly ban books at the state level. In some places, you can be arrested for possessing certain materials. Perfectly constitutional.
Freedom of speech does not mean you can say or print anything with no consequences. See libel.
Freedom of speech does not mean you can read or posses any information you want. See classified materials, state secrets, illegal materials such as CSAM.
Freedom of speech means that the government can't put three generations of your family in a concentration camp because you tweeted once that the president sucks.
The problem is people switch between this definition of freedom of speech and the the more general version found in "on liberty" and other philosophical works. If youre talking about what the government is allowed to do sure use the first definition but this conversation started by talking about the second. By subtlety switching from "is this something that is good to do" to "is this something the government is allowed to do" youve derailed the conversation.
Philosophical freedom of speech is much more than what is enumerated in the constitution.
"Just for starters, we regularly ban books at the state level."
We really do not. We sometimes ban them from public school libraries, more usually at the local than state level. A bookstore can sell you any book you care to read including those with written depictions of child sexual abuse, with the limited exception that a locality might try to declare things obscene as being contrary to local standards of decency (but in practice in modern America rarely does).
"See libel."
Libel of public figures requires knowing falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth and even then is a civil offense. There are vestigial criminal libel laws but it's doubtful they're constitutional and no one gets convicted. You can't go to jail for it and no one gets in trouble for reading it.
"See classified materials"
Unless you have a security clearance, you can read all the classified material you want if it's published. You can be punished for disclosing it if you have legal access to it, but not in practice for publishing it in peacetime (see the Pentagon Papers) and you cannot be restrained from publishing it before the fact unless doing so presents a clear and present danger to American public, a standard almost impossible to meet in peacetime.
"illegal materials such as CSAM"
In general you can read all the CSAM you want. You can't look at pictures or video.
Deliberately misinforming people, especially under a foreign state payroll, is illegal. It's not free speech.
Unless you don't think it's relevant to point out that a specific recurring point promoted by and paid for by Russian State media, under the disguise of "conservative free speech"?[0]
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/05/tim-...
I never accused anyone of being good or bad, I can't know that.
But what I do know is that this angle is used quite often by the same people who push Russian propaganda, like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson.
How would you approach someone who has been misinformed into believing free speech protects foreign state interference and that's ok, for example?
I am slightly on the side of the OP who originally made the claim but nobody should take anyone who throw's around the "paid shill" line seriously. You really are just labelling people you disagree with. Grow up.
First of all if you have any evidence of TikTok engaging in it, you should present it since even our government have said there is no such evidence and that possibility remains hypothetical.
Secondly no, it's not illegal to spread misinformation, no matter the motive. The First Amendment absolutely guarantees that right.
Not accurate, no, assuming that by misinformation you mean information that the author knows to be false. To name just two quite legally clear examples with no inherent connection to foreign states, US defamation law and US product liability law often create civil liability and occasionally even criminal liability for certain categories of knowingly false statements.
But, sure, spreading misinformation is not always illegal, and a blanket ban on that would indeed violate the First Amendment even though more targeted bans have been upheld as passing the relevant judicial tests for laws affecting First Amendment rights.
Such as?
To be more concrete about the defamation example:
Imagine someone has a grudge against you for some reason that doesn't involve any history of illegal behavior, like maybe your business won a lucrative contract that they wanted for their business. Motivated by a desire to hurt your personal reputation and cause you social ostracism, they tell all your friends and neighbors that you're a convicted murderer, when they know you've never even been accused of any kind of wrongdoing in any court whatsoever.
To the best of my knowledge, this is illegal defamation in every US state, and it's criminal in some of them. Although it's rarely prosecuted as a crime, criminal defamation laws have been upheld as constitutional in certain situations including ones that would cover this scenario (if the available evidence meets the criminal standard of proof in court). Civil defamation lawsuits are commonly enough made across the US, and under scenarios like this one, are also commonly enough won (or settled between the parties).
To be more concrete about the product liability example:
Imagine that you are a business selling a product and you write "safe for all ages" on the box, when you know it has components that are small enough for young children to choke on, but you lie about it on the packaging because your product really appeals to young children and you don't want to lose out on the profits from selling to their parents. If a 2-year-old then proceeds to choke on one of the components in the box, yes indeed there are lots of courts across the US that would award damages to the affected family, and maybe some courts that would find criminal liability as well although I'm less sure of that question.
Again, does NOBODY know what the first amendment covers???
If you yell FIRE in a crowded theatre (misinformation) that is not covered by the 1st amendment[1]. Please stop talking confidently about something you don't understand.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
Edit: Schenck v. United States was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio but not completely, only limiting the scope. There are also many other examples that could be used to show that spreading misinformation is not blanket covered by 1a (defamation for example).
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/lamont-v-postmaster-...
But spreading foreign propaganda is indeed illegal despite that precedent if one does it as an agent of a foreign government within the FARA legal definition (which is reasonably implied by being on their payroll) and does not register with the US government as a foreign agent, aside from certain exceptions.
That’s the scenario which started this subthread:
The new ruling makes it clear that misinformation is legal under 1A
Without substantiating your claim with links / references, this is an empty "appeal to authority" argument, aka weasel words.
There are a bunch and they are very easy to find.
Also, an appeal to a study is not an appeal to authority in any respect. I'm not sure you understand why an appeal to authority is not a valid argument?
https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...
And before you claim "oh that's not a REAL study", remember to quote your sources since that is the standard you insist on.
Really? Because the U.S. government, in their own court filing, have openly admitted that there is no evidence of TikTok's wrong doing in terms of manipulating information.
I don't think it gets much more authoritative than U.S. government's own court filing.
The link you provided has been debunked over and over again. It was a paid-for study aimed to generate certain conclusion.
And its methodology is silly at best, insane at worst (uses U.S. social media company as a control group for neutrality on China lmao).
This is an ongoing investigation, but it's already well-documented. Not hypothetical. Now you may think that this is only happening in Romania, but in reality, similar events were uncovered in the US[1].
It seems you want to clear these platforms of any responsibility, and I think they have part of the responsibility. It's not just Tiktok but looks like it's a platform of choice.
> Secondly no, it's not illegal to spread misinformation, no matter the motive. The First Amendment absolutely guarantees that right.
It is illegal if it is paid for foreign state and undeclared.
[0]https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/romania-tiktok-pr... [1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/05/tim-...
Good. Because ByteDance has never tried to hide the fact that it's a Chinese company. So that argument wouldn't matter even if there are evidence of them pushing Chinese propaganda.
We presumably live in a Democracy but this democracies voters cannot be trusted to read, view or engage with content that might undercut the preferred narratives of the mother country. Therefore, anyone arguing for this right must be under the communist spell or worse on the payroll.
Low IQ tbh
Here's very simple example to help you understand this: if you have someone on a foreign state payroll, they have to disclose they're being paid for by a foreign state, and people have the right to know that.[0]
You have the example of Tenet Media being paid by Russia Today to hire American right-wing influencers to promote Russian talking points, covertly - that's illegal.[0]
It just looks like people have a fundamental misunderstanding of a very basic concept about what Free Speech is.
Free Speech isn't the freedom to dupe voters, because voters may have the capacity to discern misinformation from information. Even if you go by your caustic remark, yes, a lot of voters can't discern misinformation. That's why there are laws in place.
[0]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/12/guerrilla-projects-...
Do not equate whatever perceived limits the US has with China's limits on free expression.
If we were even more on the same page generally, then the US would put its undesirable ethnic minorities in reeducation camps.