TikTok is taking the US government to court.
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What would give them standing? They’d have to be an entity protected by the constitution to claim that protection was harmed. Is it this (Wikipedia)?
TikTok Ltd was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and is based in both Singapore and Los Angeles. source
I guess I’ve never thought about what makes an entity have rights here. Buckingham Palace couldn’t just open shop here and start suing our government, right?
The case is essentially “hey you kinda passed a bill that’s against your own constitution? You’re kinda supposed to follow that…”
Does the US constitution apply for rights of businesses, or is it just people?
Not being snarky I actually don’t know
Corporations are people. Thanks to Citizens United. Though I’d gladly give up TikTok for the court to reverse this decision.
Important rights of businesses in the US constitution include
Important note regarding a business’s right to regulate free speech: The rules of the Constitution are meant to regulate Congress, not businesses or citizens. Therefore, the right to free speech means Congress cannot restrict someone from speaking his or her mind, but a business may be able to.
For example, a radio show has the right to not allow a certain person to speak on its program or to say certain things. Ultimately, such issues are decided by the Supreme Court, and there may be some exceptions, depending on the circumstances.
The constitution applies to the government, not the American (or other) people. “Government shall pass no law…”
List of companies incorporated in the Cayman Islands: https://capedge.com/company/by/incState/E9/active/true?sort=latestQuote.marketCap
Mostly obscure to me, but I looked up GlobalFoundries. Originally divested from AMD, bought IBM’s chip business, got a contract from US Department of Defense in 2023 for manufacturing military chips
I imagine you wouldn’t object to GlobalFoundries suing the US government
Of course, corporations are people and this is bigotry. Check mate.
Something important to note here is that there are various exceptions to freedom of speech protections from various time periods, one such exception is Incitement – If a person has the intention of inciting the violations of laws that is imminent and likely, while directing this incitement at a person or groups of persons, their speech will not be protected under the First Amendment. This test was created by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio.
This is relevant because alongside the TikTok forced sale they also passed a law against sending sensitive data including personal details and photographs to adversarial nations including Russia, China, Iran, etc. That means that Incitement could be used to describe TikTok operating in any capacity without completely centralizing to the USA, and therefor they would have no protections by the first amendment.
We decided a while ago that the Constitution protects everyone and every thing in the US because the loophole of declaring people and companies to not be protected was too dystopian even for conservatives at the time.
