Document Type
Article
Abstract
Prior to exiting the White House, President Trump placed a variety of restrictions on Chinese-owned social media applications, TikTok and WeChat, threatening to greatly curtail their influence in the United States. While couching his actions in the context of national security, the former president engaged in viewpoint discrimination in plain violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court rulings in favor of TikTok and WeChat were encouraging and should stem the tide of future government regulations of social media platforms. This article discusses how the decisions fit into the greater context of First Amendment jurisprudence and shows that government regulations of internet communication platforms is almost assuredly unconstitutional, whether the platform is foreign or domestic. Therefore, current and future proposals for state and federal regulations should be viewed with skepticism, as they would ultimately fail constitutional scrutiny.
Recommended Citation
Artem M. Joukov, Comrades or Foes: Did the Chinese Break the Law or New Ground Ground for the First Amendment, 125 W. Va. L. Rev. 123 (2022).