From "What Would the Founders Have Thought About TikTok and Online Porn?/The Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in First Amendment challenges to laws banning the app and shielding minors from sexual materials on the internet" (NYT).
TikTok, in a brief asking the Supreme Court to intervene, drew a different lesson from the past, citing a 1965 decision that struck down a law requiring people who wanted to receive mail that the government said was “communist political propaganda” to say so in writing.
“History and tradition show that this nation’s constitutional commitment to ‘uninhibited, robust and wide-open debate and discussion’ includes even supposed foreign ‘propaganda,’” the company wrote, quoting from the 1965 decision, Lamont v. Postmaster General, which in turn quoted from New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 libel case....
Is the government claiming a power to cut us off from speech coming from outside of the country?!
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So is TikTok admitting they are “communist political propaganda”?
Steel trap logic!
I guess I missed where this became a first amendment issue. I thought the banning of TikTok was due to the harvesting of information about US entities by a foreign government? I guess I need to pay more attention…
Sexual license and queer expression enjoyed a grudging tolerance in limited contexts. The same with alien influences and steering mechanisms.
Yes, the government is claiming the power to block voters from hearing informant provided by foreign governments, even if it is true. It's because our foreign policy is decided by a small cabal of violently paranoid neocons.
If a neocon was a regular peon, he would think: "you know, my doctor could possibly put poison in my medication, it's not impossible! Therefore: I need to kill him." But with us, it's just "China is getting so big that if they ever wanted to, they could beat us in a war over their province, Taiwan, which was wrested from them by the Imperial Japanese, who used it to attack their mainland, and which we blocked them from recovering after the war, so we better fight a war with them now! And we need to use Taiwan to attack their mainland!"
You could say that the above is "propaganda," but you can't say that it's not true.
But what purpose is served by conflating these two clearly distinct arguments? TikTok must be afraid of losing a weak case, I guess.
I simply do not believe that "there were no statutes forbidding obscenity during the entire colonial era."
is this another bellesiles exercise, in faulty sourcing,
Re: Christy:
That was my reaction as well . . . the Massachusetts Bay Colony was literally founded by Puritans who were so puritanical they couldn't live alongside normal people back in England. But Christian religious extremists typically aren't actually anti-sex (be fruitful and multiply) -- just anti-fornication -- so maybe pornography was accepted as a kind of marital aid.
I am not sure that you are very familiar with the era. I think that they relied on their pastors to keep the flock in the fold. I am reading an account from officer's journals right now of the Sullivan Campaign, and some recruits were showing up "dressed as John the Baptist in the Bible," that is in sackcloth with a belt, and another he gave his spare shirt because of the "obscenity" of a man's dress. I think that they had other things to worry about rather than keeping sinners from straying by force of law and intervention of the state.
."...shielding minors from sexual materials".
Sure. That's possible, just make it against the rules. hahaha.
If TikTok is going with "we're disseminating propaganda, and that's okay", isn't the difference between this and the case they cited about the mail that TikTok users may not be aware they are receiving foreign propaganda? I assume the mail recipients, if they had previously had to state they wanted to receive it, actually did know what they were getting and wanted it.
Speaking of foreign propaganda, the largest shareholder of The New York Times, which still sets the mainstream news agenda for the nation, is a Mexican billionaire. Perhaps we should force the sale of the NYT to a CIA front company. Oh wait, the NYT already is a CIA front company. Never mind.
It's not about the dissemination of information. It's about the harvesting of information. That's why divestiture is the remedy being pursued.
Under new ownership, people will still be able to view their stuff. They can revel in their Weimariness.
They didn't have photographs in the 18th century. And Pornography would be artist paintings and text. Not the same thing.
I wouldn’t rely on much Prof. Stone has written on this, and check the publication dates of his footnotes. Provost of U Chicago, former president of the (anti-free speech for conservatives only, because, you know) Constitution Society (an entity of Soros’ OSP), palled around with Obama’s Intelligence leak investigations, also Cass Sunstein — these are all markers of “free speech for leftists and lock the rest of them up.”
I’d say yeah, narciso, it may be another Michael Bellisles academic sourcing issue. I remember when Bellisles claimed the dog ate his historical research (actually that a convenient rooftop flood destroyed ALL it). The guy didn’t know how to research early wills and how property was listed in them, thus he made up a bunch of stuff about how nobody really owned guns in our Colonial past.
I’m very worried about this new trend of casually using (politically misusing) historical definitions of words to try to alter our current laws, done by people without the proper historical training. It’s never a good sign when the Comp Lit, History of Sexuality, and law profs get together searching for penumbras. It’s not your speech they’re trying to protect.
Colonial America had laws against "lewd and lascivious behavior", public nudity and other affronts to its era's ideas about "indecency". Anyone familiar with Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" knows that adultery and fornication were punished. Pornography was rare, as access to printing presses was limited, and printers known to deal in such materials were subject to social shaming.
A bill directed at a specific business entity is a Bill of Attainder.
"Common, widespread, legal and quite explicit", the perfesser said. Did he provide any examples?
Put this in context. In those days, only the wealthy elite had access to books, pornographic or not. The great unwashed had no access to books or pornography.
Gee … sounds familiar, one set of rules for the wealthy; a different set for the lower class(es).
The concern with TikTok is not the progress of social liberal license, but with ownership and accountability. NYT is steering the conversation away from the factual issues through an appeal to authority and ahistorical account to serve special, peculiar, and alien interests.
Jaq writes, "You could say that the above is "propaganda," but you can't say that it's not true."
It is and I can because what you have claimed is both propagandistic and untrue. Yes, Japan invaded and effectively annex Formosa. However your "them" is not who you imply. The regime from whom Formosa was wrested was the Kuomintang, often referred to as the Nationalist Party, the only lawful government of China recognized by the Allies, including the Soviet Union. The communist regime has the inferior claim.
Like, is there an extended-format coffee-table picture book about all this Colonial Erotica? Seems like there would be. I mean, there are coffee-table books about waterfalls in Switzerland. My dentist used to have one in her waiting room about the history of dentistry. Not for the faint of heart.
Sounds like Matt Gaetz was born in the wrong era.
https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1267&context=falr the premise rests on a supra note in another stone review article,
https://socialchangenyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Geoffrey-R.-Stone_RLSC_31.4.pdf again very dodgy
took me about 15 seconds to debunk his premise, some obscure limerick he can't date, with any certainty,
"In the 18th century, bookstores in the American colonies carried an extraordinary array of erotica..."
Extraordinary how, Mr. Stone? By its abundance? Or its scarcity?
It is generally believed, with some dispute, that free public libraries were not heard of much before the mid 1700s, and the first Drag Queen reading hour definitely didn’t occur until at least some time after 1920.
Sounds like Bellisles. He was a real piece of work.
the punchline, is they gave bellesiles another book contract, after Arming America, so this borders on Sokalian logic, or now AI parameters,
Now in the 18th century of Fielding's Tom Jones, that might have been something else,
However the sanction on tiktok don't rest on First Amendment grounds but the party owning and managing the company, if this is an Amicus brief, Alito or Thomas would cook it on the Barbie,
BUT! what would Professor Stone have thought about a young Florida Congressman allegedly dating a 17 year old?
"It's not about the dissemination of information. It's about the harvesting of information."
So they say. I don't believe them.
Stone is politically congruent (e.g. couples "=" couplets, sex "=" gender). Now homosexuals are attempting to dissociate from their transgender spectrum brothers and sisters. Women are being replaced by persons of the male sex identifying with the feminine gender, assaults carried out as crimes, but noth hate crimes. Hamas Palestinians celebrating social progress and women and children used as human shields after wresting control from Fatah Palestinians.
1. "So is TikTok admitting they are 'communist political propaganda'?"
- No.
2. "Is the government claiming a power to cut us off from speech coming from outside of the country?!"
- Only in a limited sense of targeting "Foreign Adversary Controlled" speech.
3. The evidence that the CCP is controlling TikTok US is classified and comes from the FBI and the Intelligence Community.
-Thus it deserves no credence whatsoever without hard facts.
4. Really interesting issues raised in this case. If you read the TikTok filing linked above, the summary beginning on page 6 explains most of the issues from their side. The DC Court's decision explains them from the government's side.
5. They'll get the injunction and hear the case.
6. I'm now better informed than I was and I'm still unsure of what the correct ruling would be.
Congress has the power to ban foreign ownership of companies who do business in the US. This is an easy case. If Tik Tok doesn’t want to sell to US owners then it’s their decision. But they can’t operate it here then.
Computers were designed for porn. I first noticed it in 1963 when BCD nudes were coming off the 7090 printer. Actually 1401 printer, which gets its input from a 7090 tape.
The first color display I noticed at work in 1979 had a nude on it in a day.
It isn't the content that is the problem, almost every bit of it is protected speech. The problem is the Chinese Communist Party's control of the platform. To hell with that, and to hell with the CCP.
The family my church sponsored in the 1950s in their escape from Chinese Communism came through Taiwan, IIRC. They have a very different opinion of the history of China, and saw the Communist Revolution their as a disaster equivalent to another Ice Age, destroying everything in its path. Hmm, and they lived through it. Who am I gonna go with, them or Jaq?
Not our business, or our war. If you want to go fight China, go ahead. If you are. suggesting that we need to go fight a war to "free" China, when Mao is long mouldering in the grave, well, you go ahead without me.
Tik-Tok is an app created by a foreign power to undermine the United States of America, and thus represents a clear and present danger to the security of the country.
It will be shut down on that basis and that is all the law requires.
On second thought, the idea that you can so freely declare a negative like that is pretty ridiculous. Not to mention that we fought a war to get the English king out of our lives.
The Constitution of the United States does not protect China's interests.
There is zero limits to the context on queer sexual grooming. It is occurring in your neighborhood. In your child's school. In the library, where they show the kids how to suck each other's dicks.
When do these endless wars to "free" people, like the Libyans, the Afghans, the Syrians, etc, etc.. end? Are you sure that we are really the good guys?
People didn't have obscene thoughts until fairly late in the twentieth century. Sex itself wasn't invented until 1964. Even then many sex acts weren't performed or even known about until after the introduction of internet porn.....That's the way it goes. If you deny all those random sexual urges, you're miserable. If you indulge in random acts of fornication, you achieve a different kind of misery or guilt. I suppose some people achieve the right balance, but one doubts if that balance can be legislated.
“It's not about the dissemination of information. It's about the harvesting of information.”
The underinclusiveness of the law hurts that argument
You know women's bodies via computer printouts only?
Explains a lot.
I can 100% guarantee the founding fathers would not have proved of the internet where their pre pubescent daughters could be exposed to hard core porn and be groomed into mutilating themselves.
Maybe they had a Vargas-like artist or two,
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/vargas-pinup
Have to go with @effingayright's reference to the Scarlet Letter. Given some of the other commenters take on Stone I would have to say that Hawthorne had a much better handle on the attitudes of the early settlers.
I thought about that too.
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