this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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Yeah I don't think ByteDance has a legal ground here.
Also this coming from a Chinese company, is rich.
I'm 100% not an expert on this, I'm actually stupid, so know that before you read what I write.
As much as I get what you are saying, the United States has continually expanded the rights of corporations to essentially be.. people. So on that they seem to have some legal standing? But then we factor in national security interests, and those override everything.
Without the national security interests I'd be curious which way this would go, but I don't expect, "I deserve to spy on your citizens because I have free speech," to fly..
So in a way I agree with you and in other ways I disagree with you, in the end.. I said nothing, but I did say I am stupid at the top, so really it's your fault for continuing to read this far.
At the very least it's gonna be interesting. I doubt it will spark any introspection for politicians to think, "Hm, maybe we shouldn't have given corporations more rights than people.." Nope. Poison the waters. Contaminate the soil. Torture the animals. Burn the sky. Cook all of humanity.
But hey, line go up.
If Tiktok doesn't deserve to spy on Americans, is it the counterpoint that US big tech does?
Only muricans get to spy on muricans! Now let's do like the commies and nationalize TikTok so it too can be murican and then it's ok for it to spy on muricans!
The true american way is to nationalise tiktok then give it away to your donor friends like a massive handout.
Heck no, but conflating two arguments at the same time makes them both unsolvable. I just approach one topic at a time. I'm very much anti-gov-spying. It's fourth amendment stuff.
But I think the constitution is more of a talking point than something American politicians care about these days. They like to use it to say, "Do the thing I like! But wait, stop using it to stop me from stopping the things I don't like!"
It's corruption all the way down.
You put forward a couple of different points - I'm not conflating things, just hoping to skip past the constitutional one (which in my opinion is non-sequitur) to address the other. I might have boiled it down to a one-liner, but here's some light further reading/viewing which may help to scratch below the surface of why this corruption as you put is probably happening: https://youtu.be/Fhgm5b8BR0k
Oh sorry, I didn't mean that to come off as an accusation.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Fhgm5b8BR0k
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
then again, theres that thing, you cant sue the us government without their explicit consent.
They can literally say "lol no"
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States
Afaik, the Citizens United case - which gave corporations First Amendment rights - was won based on the idea that the government can't stop a corporation from publishing books. It'll be interesting to see how this ruling goes when it's not about books, but about an online media platform.
That said, I agree that the national security aspect will definitely come into play here. As a non-American, I'm curious to see how it goes.
SCOTUS has generally defended the idea that corporations have first amendment rights since Grosjean v. American Press Co. in 1936 - a case where a Senator pushed for a tax designed to target papers critical of him and tax them into submission.
To quote Wikipedia on the case:
The Citizens United case was that a corporate entity or nonprofit distributing political messaging about a candidate is not considered a campaign contribution (even when it costs them to do so) so long as the entity in question is not attached to or coordinating with the campaign.