[atmavatar]

I think we can forgive anyone who expresses skepticism about the current court's adherence to the spirit and even the letter of the law after it created presidential immunity out of thin air in Trump v. United States, both because it ran afoul of the Supreme Court's tradition of issuing narrow rulings but also because there's literally nothing in the constitution about executive immunity. As there exists a grant of immunity for legislators (Article I, Section 6), it's clear the framers understood the concept but chose to exclude it for the president.

It's like the current court took a look at all the vitriol over Citizens United being one of the worst decisions in history and went "hold my beer".

That said, the present issue of TikTok seems like an open-and-shut first amendment case, regardless whether it is ultimately a tool for influence operations by a hostile foreign power. The price we pay for freedom of speech is that it enables bad faith actors as well.

[TheRealPomax]

It doesn't though: one can fully argue that tik tok is one of several platforms through which people can express themselves, which means no one's rights are being taken away by shutting down tik-tok. It would be an incredibly bad-faith decision, but watch them make it anyway.

Similarly, tik tok can't argue that they're press, even if some of their users might use the platform as a news and news commentary outlet. Again, shutting down the platform doesn't prevent those folks from continuing to do so on another platform.

There's, unfortunately, nothing open-and-shut about this case. Especially with a supreme court that seems quite keen on backing up the establishment.