The first amendment in the bill of rights in the US constitution prevents the US government from restricting the speech of US citizens. It doesn’t say anything about foreign nationals with no status in the US. The government also has the authority to deport whomever it likes, impose tariffs and restrict imports.

Regardless of moral stance, that is the reality as I see it.

> The first amendment in the bill of rights in the US constitution prevents the US government from restricting the speech of US citizens.

It also applies to foreigners who are in the US legally.

I mentioned status of foreign nationals in the very next sentence, and it sounds like TikTok’s status is about to become “unwelcome.”

The first amendment prevents the US govt from restricting the speech of anyone in the US, not just citizens.

For example, the government cannot deport an immigrant simply because they criticized the government (they can deport for a variety of other reasons though).

The government can however bar entry into the US in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleindienst_v._Mandel

> courts will not look behind [the] decision [not to waive the statutory exclusion of an alien] or weigh it against the First Amendment interests of those who would personally communicate with the alien

Interesting. Yeah, I'm broadly not sure how the first amendment applies to this TikTok bill, if at all.

I think TikTok is a security risk, but it seems to me that if the govt can ban TikTok, it can legally ban any foreign media. Which doesn't seem ideal from a free speech perspective.

160 million US citizens post/watch those videos on tiktok, tiktok is their platform for expressing themselves, by banning tiktok, they can argue that the government is taking away their platform for expressing themselves.

it is all about the rights of US users.

Do you have case citations to prove that claim?

Even if you do, that's not what is happening here. At all.