[darkpicnic]

I've always been confused by this First Amendment argument with regards to TikTok: they're an organization that has been tied directly with an adversarial foreign state. How is this a rational take? Using this logic, Russia should be allowed to foment unrest through fake hate groups on Facebook (which they've done).

People should familiarize themselves with Gresham's Law: bad actors will always beat good actors if bad actors suffer no penalty. If bad actors leverage the rights and freedoms of a democracy to perform attacks without repercussion, we're toast.

[krapp]

>I've always been confused by this First Amendment argument with regards to TikTok: they're an organization that has been tied directly with an adversarial foreign state.

The First Amendment doesn't contain exceptions for adversarial foreign states, it's that simple. If it's acceptable to foment disinformation, hatred and conspiracy natively, and all free speech advocates will say that it is, then the same speech coming from foreign adversaries must also be acceptable.

And let's be clear - the premise that TikTok is some kind of nefarious CCP mind control platform is entirely speculative, and based primarily on Sinophobia. Elon Musk is driving far right wing white supremacist and anti-vaxx content all the time, but people are losing their shit about something TikTok isn't even doing.

>People should familiarize themselves with Gresham's Law: bad actors will always beat good actors if bad actors suffer no penalty.

This is true, but as far as the First Amendment is concerned, it's the job of society to penalize bad actors in the marketplace of ideas, not the government. Which is still further than many free speech advocates are willing to accept, but in practice means that it's up to TikTok (and every other platform) to decide what speech to carry, and what speech not to carry, and under whatever terms they choose, within legal limits of course.

[_DeadFred_]

TikTok is banned in China.

TikTok has gone on record that they would rather shutdown that be forced to sell. No normal business/business owners would do that.

[Tao3300]

The first time I fired up TikTok I was subjected to video of an older, "surgically-enhanced" woman in a Trump bikini (intention obvious), and someone putting a bumper sticker about killing pedophiles on their car (intention less obvious: a dog whistle for QAnon).

Maybe it's not a nefarious CCP mind control platform. Maybe it is even doing this sort of thing totally blindly based on "engagement". But there's definitely propaganda being served up by default.