Will lawyers be sharing insight and people listening to that insight on TikTok, next weekend?
That’s up in the air based on the beginning of Supreme Court hearings, today.
When I began publishing on the Internet and empowering lawyers to do the same with my platforms, I formed the belief, with advice from First Amendment Counsel, that the net was one giant poster board enabling one to put up what they wanted. Free speech thrived.
Taking it a step further, with the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, my publishing company could not be liable for what people wrote on our platform or commented on publications on our platform. It was like Federal Express – can’t be liable for what the letter inside said. More free speech and First Amendment, as I saw it.
This may all change when the publisher is arguably a threat to national security.
Last year a law was passed that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance divest its ownership of the app due to national security concerns by January 19, 2025. If ByteDance failed to comply by this date, TikTok faced a ban in the United States.
The Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin and Jacob Gershman report that TikTok’s lawyer, Noel Francisco told the court that the law unlawfully burdens the platform’s First Amendment rights.
Justice Thomas didn’t see the law as restricting speech, but instead restricting Chinese ownership, resulting in our data being vulnerable.
Francisco responded:
It singles out a single speaker for uniquely harsh treatment, and it does so because the government fears that China could in the future indirectly pressure Tiktok, to disseminate foreign misinformation.
The problem is, per Chief Justice John Roberts, that the court cannot ignore congressional concerns that Beijing could use TikTok to spread propaganda and collect data on Americans.
It seems to me that you’re ignoring the major concern here of Congress, which was Chinese manipulation of the content and acquisition and harvesting of the content.
I’ve always wanted to try TikTok for my video recording. It looks like I may have do so in the next week.
My guess – and it’s merely a guess – is that because of the amount of money involved in losing U.S. access, ByteDance is going to divest itself of TikTok.