吃瓜直播

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in one of the most important First Amendment cases of our time: TikTok v. Garland. Brought by TikTok and its users, the suit challenges a law passed last Congress that will functionally ban the platform in the U.S.starting January 19. If upheld, the law won鈥檛 just impact the more than 170 million Americans who use TikTok, it will also endanger the constitutional rights of every American to speak and receive information online.

As explained in the friend-of-the-court brief the 吃瓜直播 and its partners filed with the Supreme Court, under the First Amendment the government must meet an extraordinarily high bar to ban an entire communications platform. To ban TikTok, the government must show that the ban is the only way to prevent serious, imminent harm to national security and that the ban limits no more speech than necessary to accomplish that purpose. The government has not come close to meeting that standard.

The at issue gives the president unprecedented power to shut down Americans鈥� speech and access to information under the guise of protecting national security. It requires TikTok鈥檚 parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or face a ban, while also granting the president broad authority to force divestiture and ban other communications platforms with corporate parents based in China.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) the law has two purposes: to limit the Chinese government鈥檚 ability to 鈥渃overtly鈥� manipulate what Americans see on TikTok, and to prevent the Chinese government from accessing Americans鈥� data. But, that TikTok is being exploited in either of these ways, neither satisfies the First Amendment high bar.

The government鈥檚 first justification boils down to fear of Chinese government propaganda. Indeed, more than 20 legislators justified their support for banning TikTok in these terms; citing the risk of foreign propaganda as well as other concerns about the content carried on TikTok, such as the content available to minors and the alleged suppression of pro-Ukraine videos.

As a general rule, the government can鈥檛 simply ban speech it dislikes. When Congress restricts speech based on its content or viewpoint, and especially when it bars speech in advance, it triggers the strictest test under the First Amendment. That test requires, among other things, real evidence of serious harm. But the DOJ has acknowledged there is no evidence that China is covertly manipulating TikTok鈥檚 content in the U.S.

Regardless, courts have long held that the government cannot keep Americans from accessing foreign propaganda. In 1965, the court struck down a law that required the postmaster general to detain 鈥渃ommunist political propaganda,鈥� which could be delivered to recipients only after they specifically requested it from the U.S. post office. In its decision, the court reasoned that even this 鈥渕ere burden鈥� was an unconstitutional effort to 鈥渃ontrol the flow of ideas to the public.鈥�

Congress鈥檚 second justification for the law鈥攖o protect Americans鈥� data from the Chinese government鈥攁lso fails under the First Amendment. While it is true that TikTok collects large amounts of user data, the government hasn鈥檛 pointed to any actual or imminent national security harm from this collection or explained how TikTok鈥檚 collection differs from that of countless other companies. But a ban would not effectively address Americans鈥� data security anyway, because the Chinese government, or other foreign entities, can purchase Americans鈥� personal data on the open market.

The law鈥檚 supporters have, at times, minimized the ban鈥檚 impact on the First Amendment, citing the mistaken belief that TikTok users can simply move to another platform. From a constitutional perspective, this is nonsense. The government can鈥檛 justify shutting down The Washington Post because readers can simply buy The New York Times instead. Others have likened the TikTok ban to existing restrictions on foreign ownership of radio licenses, arguing that if those rules are constitutional, so is this ban. That鈥檚 misleading. Those rules govern the allocation of a limited set of broadcast frequencies. The internet doesn鈥檛 have such constraints; it can accommodate an endless number of apps and platforms, offering Americans unlimited sources of information.

Banning TikTok is unprecedented, unconstitutional, and un-American. If the Supreme Court allows the government to shut down an entire platform on such a flimsy evidentiary record, it would set a disturbing precedent for future government restrictions on online speech. It would also increase the risk that sweeping invocations of 鈥渘ational security鈥� will trump our constitutional rights.

The government does not get to control how Americans express themselves鈥攐n or offline鈥攂ased on vague and hypothetical harms. This is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, not the U.S.. The Supreme Court must block the ban and defend the freedoms at the heart of our democracy.