Do I Really Need a New Frontier in First Amendment Judgmentation? The Montana Attorney General Knudsen Reveals What Happens When I Write a Letter to the Guardian
But banning TikTok isn’t just foolish and dangerous, it’s also unconstitutional. The strong free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment bar the government from extreme actions like criminalizing an app that millions of people use to express their opinions and ideas. The US government is powerless to stop you from reading a foreign newspaper or writing an opinion piece for The Guardian, even though they can prevent you from watching or posting TikTok videos.
A statewide ban is radically different from a government device embargo and general encouragement, though. The US First Amendment protects speech and the ability to hear it.
“We’re under no illusions that this is not going to get challenged,” Montana attorney general Austin Knudsen told The New York Times on Wednesday. “I think this is the next frontier in First Amendment jurisprudence that’s probably going to have to come from the US Supreme Court. I think that is the direction this is going.
Riana Pfefferkorn, a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, says Montana attorney general Knudsen’s assertions about a “next frontier in First Amendment jurisprudence” are overblown, particularly given the AG’s comments during the recent Times interview. Knudsen said that his office was motivated to ban TikTok after parents protested that the posts talked about drug use, porn and suicide.
What is the impact of China’s internet censorship on online activities? Evan Greer writes regularly about tech policies, human rights and civil rights in Boston
Evan Greer is a musician, activist and writer who lives in Boston. She’s the director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, and a regular commentator on issues related to technology policy, LGBTQ communities and human rights. Follow her on Twitter @evan_greer or Mastodon @[email protected]. CNN has an opinion on it.
So it is not just TikTok. Many things you do on all of your devices are tracked. Companies that engage in the practice claim to track users activities online in order to deliver targeted advertising and content.
China has one of the most sophisticated and repressive internet systems in the world. The Great Firewall is the core of China’s censorship regime, which blocks all foreign social media apps, news sites and even educational resources.
The law is vague and could have dire consequences for internet users who try to circumvent the ban by side-loading an app or using the Apple store.
Many companies sell the data they harvest to third parties, who sell it to fourth and fifth and sixth parties. While companies collect this data for the purpose of extracting profit and getting users hooked on their products, governments have long taken an interest.
The Russian government influenced information on Facebook during the 2016 elections. The US has engaged in similar conduct overseas before. Consider the US history in influencing the outcome of elections in Latin America, or the influence of US allies on the outcome of the Arab Spring. State-backed disinformation campaigns are happening at a mass scale and on every major platform. By demanding more transparency and accountability, we fight that.
It’s a national embarrassment that we have no basic data privacy law in the United States. We continue to allow unregulated tech monopolies to take over and ruin our lives. Every day our elected officials spread moral panic about what the kids are doing on TikTok is another day we’re left vulnerable.
Washington’s TikToK hysteria will fade quickly if you have the right luck. Legislation that protects people, in this case privacy and antitrust legislation, will be the next hot new trend in the capital.