No one is restricted from "free exchange of ideas." TikTok can divest and stay in the US market just fine. It is an ownership question, not a freedom of exchange of ideas question. There is no constitutional right for a foreign entity to do unrestricted business in the United States.

US Congress likewise does not give a fuck what you think though, unless you are a US Citizen and even then you get a single vote. The US population at large has decided on this by their representative government.

And a larger portion of the population doesn’t care that you can’t share cat and dance videos on an app labeled TikTok instead of an app labeled Instagram or Reels or X other copycats. TikTok was allowed to continue to exist as well as long as they divested from Chinese ownership

Listen, if they actually ban it, a copycat within the us will pop up, and the network will move there. I actually think it might be beneficial to change apps every now and then, it helps break the network effects that make apps "too big to fail".

All that will likely change is people will slowly move to a US alternative, one that's propagandized by the US and not china. You'll still be allowed to have whatever discussions you want on there, conservative qanon theories, or anarchist calls to action. The videos will go into the NSA database instead of china's, it'll train our algorithms instead of theirs, etc. The app will now be bound by US Law, for better or for worse. But if slow moving from an app is going to crush your political belief/circle/movement, you didn't have one to begin with.

Your second sentence is a gross misunderstanding and you might benefit from some therapy to be kinder to others. Regarding the first do you realize TikTok is not allowed in China and Byte Dance runs Douyin with a government safety system for content ? And secondly would you consider any government modifying a virality algorithm to still be a free speech platform?

I do. West is being bombarded by disinformation that hides under “freedom of speech” umbrella.