[mckenzba]

Show me where it is an infringement of your 1st amendment right to a private platform? You’re free to criticize the government however you see fit, but you’re not guaranteed the right to a microphone and stage that isn’t yours. There are plenty of other communication channels you can use to express yourself. Your 1st amendment rights are not being infringed by being denied access to TikTok, just as the far right isn’t having their 1st amendment rights being infringed by being denied to use BlueSky as their platform.

[echoangle]

> You’re free to criticize the government however you see fit, but you’re not guaranteed the right to a microphone and stage that isn’t yours.

So if I wanted to hold a speech how corrupt the government is and then the government passed a law that a PA supplier isn't allowed to sell me a Microphone or speakers, that wouldn't infringe my first amendment right because I don't have a right to a microphone or a stage? (Im not American so I don't have any first amendment rights anyways but for arguments sake.)

[anon84873628]

Yes, a court could reach that conclusion.

It's the PA supplier would be in a better position to argue that their rights are being violated. Especially if a single customer was targeted because of their political views / protected characteristics etc.

The problem with the TikTok scenario is that no specific group is being targeted for restraint. And the government does have the right to regulate trade. E.g. there are embargoed countries, export controls, etc. The fact that you can't sell raw milk across state lines is different from a hypothetical restriction on selling raw milk to, say, people named Todd.

[imgabe]

No, it wouldn’t. Congress could pass a law that we’re not going to import microphones and speakers from China. The Constitution explicitly gives them the power to do that. You could then purchase them from any one of a number of other companies and your speech is unaffected.

[djcapelis]

Look, my point is that the first amendment is in play here and it’s not ridiculous to suggest a free speech analysis is required to hold the law as constitutional or not, which is what the court did and what reasonable people can agree or disagree around to what extent that speech should or shouldn’t be protected. (I personally think, as I stated that the free speech harm is a stronger case from the users who have now been restrained in their ability to use the platform and software distributors who are now restrained from distributing specific software than it is as applied to TikTok where the legislation is content neutral and so the free speech analysis is less relevant.) I’m not even claiming that this law should be found unconstitutional, just that there are free speech issues to adjudicate and the less obvious ones are probably more relevant than the one people are citing where the restraint is content neutral.

Your comment however draws a weird parallel later on though but first let’s take a moment here:

> Your 1st amendment rights are not being infringed by being denied access to TikTok

That is what the court found but it opens some interesting questions that really do have impacts.

I would bet that you would find a law that says op-eds can only be published in an approved list of venues to be clearly wrong, yet it is equally just determining venue and not content.

As would a law which banned foreign ownership of venues while also introducing a regulatory scheme for domestic ownership stakes of sensitive industries and defined news and commentary as a nationally security sensitive industry. (Which this law essentially does for certain types of apps.)

So at some point a law can be “content neutral” and about access to venue not content but I bet almost any reasonable person would agree it’s an unreasonable restraint.

Now for a situation you draw the above as a parallel with but is very different:

> just as the far right isn’t having their 1st amendment rights being infringed by being denied to use BlueSky as their platform.

Bluesky can do whatever they want but if the government were to get involved in defining regulations around which users could use BlueSky… yes absolutely I would expect it to be thrown out on first amendment grounds and expect it’s a significantly stronger case than any of the examples above.

It’s a much weaker and almost irrelevant case when directed at a non-governmental organization in which some folks are using “free speech” as an argument over what entities which are not enjoined from almost any actions may do with their own venues. But yeah, if it was the government telling BlueSky who to ban? You bet that’s got first amendment implications and I’d expect a court to review it under strict scrutiny. (And I wouldn’t expect it to survive.)

[kelnos]

> I would bet that you would find a law that says op-eds can only be published in an approved list of venues to be clearly wrong, yet it is equally just determining venue and not content.

That's a poor analogy, because allowlists and blocklists are not the same thing and do not have the same effects. The government only allowing a list of certain approved media outlets would be an obvious 1A infringement. The government blocking certain media outlets is not.

[djcapelis]

It’s not meant to say they’re the same thing, it’s meant to demonstrate clearly that venue restrictions even when content neutral can impose restrictions on speech and those restrictions must be balanced and scrutinized appropriately under our system.