this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
134 points (88.1% liked)
Asklemmy
45301 readers
1878 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
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.
But again, you can make that argument about any platform or medium where speech can be posted or displayed. If the department of public health condemns a local movie theater where I host indie movie screenings, that is not a violation of my first amendment rights because they are not prohibiting my ability to make or share content, they are simply removing the space it is currently shared. If that comes out to the same effect for some people who are all-in on TikTok to the exclusion of any other short-form video sharing service, sure, maybe there are grievances. But that still ends up being a self-imposition made by the individual at the end of the day.
Not to mention, the US government is not trying to close down TikTok. They are prohibiting the owners of TikTok from doing business in the US. The company itself would be the one to make the decision to close the service rather than sell it off, so unless the fed is going to force a private business to keep itself open to placate the masses, it's a decision made by a private company outside of any constitutional law.