The First Amendment certainly became more prominent in 2020
The survey shows more than 50% increase in naming any right
that the First Amendment guarantees since 2017.
The misconceptions around the First Amendment still continue
65% of those surveyed agreed
that social media companies violate users’ First Amendment rights
when they ban users based on the objectionable content they post.
This came to a climax when AppStore threatened to ban Parler
after the storming at the U.S. Capitol.
You might remember, there was also another app
that was almost banned in 2020. TikTok.
When TikTok was essentially born in China
as an acquired spinoff of musical.ly,
its moderation policies, its internal community standards
were reflective of the CCP’s and China’s values.
They restricted a great deal of political dissent
and even seemingly suppressed videos of certain minorities
and the physically disabled.
These aren’t our Western liberal values.
There is an explanation as to why the app is so addictive.
Its algorithm has made it easier to go viral than any other platform.
The main reason for its success is that they use machine learning
to evaluate the quality of every video uploaded.
Another reason why TikTok is so addictive is a bit dicey:
the app analyzes the user’s behavior so well
that it always curates the perfect flow of content for you.
There are many incidents that may people realized
TikTok harvests a lot of information
and any information from a Chinese company
can be accessed by the Chinese government.
Trump has been very vocal in his distaste for the owners of the app: Bytedance.
He said the ban was needed in order to "protect our national security.”
However, the issue is a bit larger than that.
Rather than following other particular users,
on TikTok the algorithm will,
when you initially log on,
attempt to use the first information you’ve put in,
and information about your device and location.
We have no way of knowing what they do with that data,
and that data can be put in an enormous amount of use,
and that’s why the U.S. government wants to secure people.
A general need for regulation of data privacy
seems like the obvious solution here.
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is designed to do exactly that.
However, companies are not keen on complying with it.
TikTok, for example, sends consumers to two additional sites
to manage their targeted advertising preferences,
although in their privacy policy is a claim
that it does not “sell your personal information to third parties.”
Another piece of legislation
that actually ensures free speech is Section 230.
It is the pillar of the internet as we know today,
and actually protects free speech of "every individual."
Including republicans, democrats, and the rest of us.
Europe has long attempted to use regulation
and antitrust as an effective tax on American firms.
And for a long time,
America has benefited from a free and open Internet,
in which mainly our firms can do business around the world
without being heavily regulated or picked apart by national security concerns.
However, in the U.S., taking the lead here really
to utilize what is ostensibly a national security concern,
to really force the sale of a foreign business to U.S. firms,
legitimizes other countries following this route
and threatening to ban TikTok really via
American app stores that operate internationally.
We risk politicizing them.
As you look at the competition,
there’s two aspects to a competition, one of these means
preventing the other guy from bothering you or hurting you
and protecting that what he’s doing;
the other is protecting your ability to compete.
So, when you look at an issue like TikTok,
we’d love to maximize people’s ability on the Internet to do whatever they want.
The First Amendment protects both freedom of speech
and freedom of association of the U.S. citizens.
But what happens when those two seem to be in a clash?
Parler an app favored by conservatives is facing that very problem.
Apple, Amazon, and Google had worries the app was instrumental
for storming the U.S. Capitol on the 6th of January, 2021.
Under section 230,
providers are not responsible for the content of their users;
so, it cannot be a basis for banning apps,
but the conscious lack of moderation in Parler
is a direct violation of an agreement between Parler and their hosts
such as Apple, Google, and Amazon.
TikTok, like a lot of other apps,
gathers information about us as we use it.
They’re aware of what we do on the app
and what we’re doing on our phones while we’re using the app.
However, just going after TikTok,
in an attempt to prevent the CCP from gathering data about Americans,
is like bolting one stall in a barn after all of the horses have bolted.
Unless there’s some kind of broad-based data protection restriction or regulation,
there’s no reason that China or the CCP can’t simply turn to other apps
and the third-party data market.
So, TikTok is just one drop in this ecosystem.
Look at the U.S. to me and look let’s be honest,
China is a huge force in the world,
people have to be concerned about annoying China because
China actually punishes you for not playing ball with them
in economically,
when you sell propaganda, diplomacy,
China punishes people that don’t cooperate.
They gather and store information about American servicemen
and employees seeking classified access or clearances.
And they were hacked by a foreign adversary, most likely China,
a number of years ago,
and the sort of data that was stolen or exfiltrated then,
anything you would get from TikTok
just pales in comparison to the kind of highly personal classification,
relevant data that someone, probably China,
stole about U.S. personnel.
Look at China. China bans all our social networking apps,
they limit how service can be done.
So, the notion that somehow the U.S. by banning a social networking technology
creates some kind of precedent, it doesn’t even stand on its face because
you see countries do that regardless.
So, there’s no precedent there.
Americans use this app to communicate with one another, to express themselves;
it’s a valuable tool for the exercise of their First Amendment rights.
So, unlike most of the free world.
China does not see a distinction between the private sector and the government,
a distinction between the political sphere, and the economic sphere
or the military sphere,
and functionally all these elements are instruments of the party
to support the will and the interests of the party.
China domestic laws say that to put simply
any data that a Chinese company touches
the Chinese government is entitled to access to that data.
So, is there a right way to ban an app?
The answer is: may be.
As much as banning TikTok over security concerns is a legitimate thought,
it seems a bit like an overstep on the part of the U.S. government
to ban an app through executive orders.
After all, that is what China does:
banning all the international social media apps
to use technology as a propaganda device.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and many others are prohibited in China.
You can even get imprisoned for selling VPN services
from 9 months to 5 years.
That is the China we are facing now.
Inciting violence and creating a harmful platform should not be tolerated.
Every social networking app is curating and moderating their content
to appeal to their customers better.
We should not be confusing those platforms’ freedom of association
with our freedom of speech --these two can coexist.
And they often do coexist only in a peaceful environment.