• Rottcodd@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    TikTok doesn’t engage in speech at all. TikTok is s platform on which people engage in speech. Those people include Americans.

    So TikTok being legally considered a person or not, having rights or not and so on is irrelevant, since TikTok’s nominal rights aren’t being violated in the first place. The rights of the Anerican people are the ones that would be violated - they are the ones whose freedom of speech would be restricted.

    IANAL but I presume that’s the argument they’re using - that when they say that it’s a violation of the first amendment, what they mean is not that it violates their supposed freedom of speech, but that it violates our inalienable freedom of speech (as it in fact, and obviously, does).

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I think TikTok has a case here, but I don’t think that angle is it. Otherwise, any business blocked by the US due to alleged crimes/embargoes/refusing to meet regulations can claim it is a violation of their right to free speech if they so much as maintain a website, notice board, or wall that Americans can stick flyers onto.

      Any legal visitors/businesses/organizations etc. from abroad that enter or work in the United States are still protected by the bill of rights, so TikTok can claim this as a personal infringement despite being incorporated abroad.