Supreme Court signals it will uphold ban on TikTok over national security concerns and other takeaways from oral arguments

During more than two hours of oral arguments, many of the justices appeared to view the sell-or-ban law approved by Congress in April not as one that primarily implicates the First Amendment but rather as an effort to regulate the potential foreign control of an app used by 170 million Americans.

Justices across the ideological spectrum raised doubts that the TikTok ban even implicated the First Amendment. That’s a bad sign for TikTok, because to win, it had to prove first that the First Amendment applies in the case and then that the law has failed to meet its tests.


From what I'm reading, it sounds like Gorsuch and Kagan are the two who seemed concerned with the sell-or-ban law, the rest seem to be coming down on the other side.

Pommer said:

I’ve characterized this as capitalists mad that commies out-sold a product and demanded the godless Heathen sell it to decent God-fearing folk who’ll do right by our fair nation!

If the issue is “who owns it?”, SCOTUS will defer to the Congress, (uphold the law).
If the issue is “whose speech will this impinge?”, it could go the other way.

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Given that the data TikTok is collecting includes:
- your name, age, username, email, password, phone number, location
- the content of messages, when they're sent, received and read, and by whom
- a user's activities on other websites and apps or in stores, including the products or services purchased, online or in person
- keystroke patterns
- your IP address, mobile carrier, time zone settings, model of your device and operating system
- objects and scenery that appear in your videos, including tourist attractions, shops or other points of interest
- biometric identifiers such as faceprints and voiceprints

Isn't there the slightest bit of concern when a foreign adversary could have access to that information?

People were up in arms about Russia running a $50k misinformation campaign on facebook during election time. China potentially being able to harvest all of the above doesn't come across as the least bit concerning?

Now, I know the typical response is "well yea, but Facebook, Google, and Microsoft collect many of the same things". True...but when they misuse it or abuse it, they're subject to more US oversight and potential legal penalties, whereas, if we give a written complaint to the CCP, they can tell us exactly where they'd like us to stick it.

You invoked the term "commies", I should point out that a staple of communism is the ability to try to use capitalism against itself for self-serving reasons.

There was a staple of communist thought and strategy coined "The Long March Through the Institutions".

Whether people like it or not (or even recognize it), social media has become an institution in western societies.

TikTok often amplifies critiques of wealth inequality, corporate greed, and exploitation. Content exposing the lifestyles of billionaires or criticizing capitalism’s environmental impact can resonate with users, making socialist critiques more palatable.