| Friend,
TikTok will face a national ban unless ByteDance, the app’s parent company, sells it by Jan. 19, 2025. For its millions upon millions of U.S.-based users — ranging from activists to small-business owners to artists and everyone in between — this impending ban is a threat to their ability to connect and communicate with the communities that they’ve cultivated online.
Whether you scroll through TikTok every day or you can’t stand the thought of it, we should all be troubled by this effort to narrow free expression online. It’s notable that this deadline falls one day before Trump returns to the White House, because we know all too well that the incoming administration is fixated on crushing dissent.1
Please join a group of First Amendment experts and advocates in a timely discussion of what’s at stake as the TikTok ban approaches.
The looming deadline could provide an opportunity for yet another Trump-aligned billionaire to take over the platform and force it to conform to their right-wing agenda. We saw this happen with Musk’s takeover and destruction of Twitter. TikTok could very well be next.
Here are the details of our discussion: WHAT: Social Media & the First Amendment: Breaking Down the TikTok Ban WHEN: Tues., Dec. 17, at 2 p.m. ET WHERE: RSVP on Zoom WHO: Free Press and the Knight First Amendment Institute WHY: The Jan. 19 deadline for TikTok is little more than one month away. Now is the time to discuss the fate of the millions of U.S.-based TikTok users who will be silenced if the service is shut down — and how this will undermine free speech for online communities. This is too important to miss. Secure your spot today. RSVP NOW There are good-faith concerns around privacy and misinformation on TikTok, but the remedy here cannot be an unconstitutional blanket ban on a single platform — especially since these same problems are prevalent across social media. There is a dark irony here as the proposed ban poses a greater threat to your rights than the platform itself.
Hope you can make it to Tuesday’s live webinar,
Nora and the rest of us at Free Press
1. “The First Amendment Flip Flops of Trump's FCC Pick Brendan Carr,” Free Press, Dec. 5, 2024 |
