But wouldn't you be infringing the rights of the US users if you ban the platform they want to message other US users over? Isn't that indirectly infringing their free speech? Or does the first amendment not protect stuff like this?
Of course there is. It’s obvious that a huge chunk of the momentum behind the TikTok ban stems from a desire to suppress anti-Israel content.
The actual purpose of a law or system is the actual outcome of it and not what it's dressed up to say its purpose is. A law that says "we don't allow mosques unless they're owned by people not descended from countries on a terrorism watch list" is still an infringement of the freedom of religion. We don't have to pretend there's good faith here.
This is at best vacuously true. Since China is the most powerful adversary of the US, you'd say that literally anyone else is more under the thumb of the US government than they are.
Like with tik tok, the ban itself isn't a speech issue because there's nothing bytedance can change about it's communication to not be banned, it's an ownership problem.
Yes. Foreign-ownership rules have been a thing in America for almost a century [1].
[1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli...
Clearly it's not.
Yes, the government can make laws that effect speech platforms just like we can make them pay taxes.