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Comment by cscurmudgeon | Hacker News Reader

US freedom applies only to citizens and residents and not foreign govts.

That’s part of what is being criticized. Human rights are supposed to be universal, and some countries actually handle them like that, applying them to citizens and foreigners alike.

What human right is being violated? This is about what types of business are allowed to domestic and foreign entities. I've never heard anyone declare "its a basic human right for institutions designed to do business behind a liability shield to do as they please anywhere and any time".

Which country gives the rest of the world the same rights as its citizens?

Human rights are just made up. It means nothing to talk about them. You can scream in a desert that water is a human right as much as you want, doesn't mean it is going to rain.

Out of touch comment. It's nice to know that sometimes, there's a mutual understanding that people are people.

Of course people are people. The person I was responding to misunderstood the US constitution as a list of human rights, as well as the enforcing mechanism for the US constitution, and who it applies to.

Yes, and Americans should have the freedoms to receive whatever information they want, including whatever is on Tik Tok. This is covered by the first amendment.

It's not the information that's banned, it's TikTok. People don't seek to ban TikTok because they fear the content, they fear the power that an enemy nation has over their citizens. It's not a free speech issue.

Imagine if a company developed a new form of paper and published many books on it. If the paper turns out to be toxic and is banned, the company can't then say "oh, no, we're being censured". It has nothing to do with the message.

The courts can look at the effect of the ban, not just the intention. If the effect is that it ends up limiting Americans' access to information (which it would, unless ByteDance gave in and sold) then a court could find it unconstitutional.

IANAL, but this is my understanding.

Same holds true of your 2nd example, if it required Americans to turn in all the books they owned printed on that paper, for example.

Where on earth does it say that the government cannot limit access to information? If that were true then how on earth is book censorship legal?

For that matter, how was it legal to change to digital tv broadcasts? CCP tiktok can absolutely still operate a website that wont be blocked. The medium of delivery isnt protected speech.

> it ends up limiting Americans' access to information

it is not a right to have unlimited access to any and all information.

It is only a constitutional violation (by the gov't) to _prevent_ an american citizen from any speech. It would not be a violation to legislatively ban a company, unless that company was the only place you could make speeches, and thus resulting in the outcome where there's defacto speech repression.

However, such a company ban, if it werent due a violation, would erode the trust in the US financial system. Because if the US decides they can just divest you without you violating any current known laws, it will make foreign investment in the US more difficult.

"People don't seek to ban TikTok because they fear the content"

I'm not convinced about that. Open letter to congress from JFNA: https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-1/1/Jewish%2520Federation%2520Let...

Yes, and Americans should have the freedoms to receive whatever information they want

And they do. This isn't a content-based ban. If a non-Chinese company acquires TikTok, they can continue to host exactly the same material without restrictions.

Can't tell if the new company would be able to host the same exact material. It's already come out that the White House pressured Google and Facebook to promote covid19 vaccine content. YouTube banning Russia-linked channels doesn't seem like their own decision either. The US doesn't control its media nearly the same way many other countries do, but there's still some control.

If you look at the rhetoric of lawmakers and lobbyists supporting the ban, a lot of it is about the content.

Totally. This is the main thing agaisnt the free speech argument. We have also passed this same law in radio and TV. It's about influence at a mass scale more than anything. I don't know why we would want a foreign ADVERSARY to have free reign.

This framing is all backwards. Americans go to TikTok for content of their own free will. This law effectively prevents Americans from using an information service they prefer.

Unless, of course, you want to admit that social media applications, through some combination of peer pressure, advertising, propaganda, manipulation, and deception subvert the free will of some portion of their users. In which case naturally they ought to be regulated in order to protect your citizens. Except... then the regulation drafted reads as "only American companies are allowed to subvert the free will of Americans", which comes off as pretty sinister.

> Except... then the regulation drafted reads as "only American companies are allowed to subvert the free will of Americans", which comes off as pretty sinister.

Sinister or not this framing makes a lot more sense than the alternative if you write it like this:

“Only companies [beholden to American interests] are allowed to [influence] Americans”.

The core premise is really rather dull. If the company poses a risk to Americans, then it should exist fully within reach of the US Gov regulations and completely out of the control of adversaries.

You’re talking one level too low in the process.

I’m not arguing if a us citizen should be allowed to use a property controlled by foreign adversary.

I’m arguing should a foreign adversary be able to control such a large US property in the first place?

In my opinion, having a direct line to > 100 million people where they can send push notifications that tell people to contact their government for a specific purpose is not so great. That’s leaving out the more subtle untraceable black box of deranking things their government doesn’t like.

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