Huh. Well, that’s an interesting turn of events.
I mean, I’m not a lawyer, but the basic premise seems solid. US has that whole ‘corporations are people’ shtick going on, and… well, guess now it’s time for that ruling to become inconvenient for the government.
But freedom of speech is an US right, how does banning a Chinese company even if they are a person violate free speech? They would be a Chinese citizen with the rights given in their country so no free speech. Just don’t get the play they are trying to make here.
TikTok doesn’t engage in speech at all. TikTok is s platform on which people engage in speech. Those people include Americans.
So TikTok being legally considered a person or not, having rights or not and so on is irrelevant, since TikTok’s nominal rights aren’t being violated in the first place. The rights of the Anerican people are the ones that would be violated - they are the ones whose freedom of speech would be restricted.
IANAL but I presume that’s the argument they’re using - that when they say that it’s a violation of the first amendment, what they mean is not that it violates their supposed freedom of speech, but that it violates our inalienable freedom of speech (as it in fact, and obviously, does).
I think TikTok has a case here, but I don’t think that angle is it. Otherwise, any business blocked by the US due to alleged crimes/embargoes/refusing to meet regulations can claim it is a violation of their right to free speech if they so much as maintain a website, notice board, or wall that Americans can stick flyers onto.
Any legal visitors/businesses/organizations etc. from abroad that enter or work in the United States are still protected by the bill of rights, so TikTok can claim this as a personal infringement despite being incorporated abroad.
It’s interesting because technically the content on TikTok is the speech of the users and TikTok is just processing it. It’s not actually their “speech”. Does that mean anything? Are they considered press? Same thing. It’s the content of the users.
Don’t they make you sign some EULA that states something along the lines of “everything you submit becomes our property” like all the rest do?
It won’t happen, but imagine how satisfying it would be if TikTok was the domino that led to Citizens United being overturned
I mean, I don’t know if I would say “interesting turn of events” per se. This was entirely expected, to the point where every major news outlet was reporting on the day the ban was announced that TikTok was likely to contest it in court.
Not really, this was always coming. Any time new regulations effect a corporation, they sue. Sometimes it’s just to establish a more reasonable timeframe to make the necessary changes to stay in regulation, sometimes it’s to upturn the entire law. This was pretty much always Step 2. What’s real interesting is TikTok’s refusal to sell, which tells me that they think they have a very solid court case.
What’s real interesting is TikTok’s refusal to sell, which tells me that they think they have a very solid court case.
they’re stuck between a rock & hard place and suing is the only path left open to them
the rock): the chinese government has laws similar to the united states that will block a sale of any algorithm to a foreign enemy.
the hard place): bytedance uses the same algorithm in all of their social media companies and american tiktok is a relatively small slice of their revenue pie so it doesn’t make business sense to give their secret recipe to a competitor
If TikTok winning this means we treat corporations more like people, does that mean we can start charging them with murder and suing them when they infringe on our rights?
