Contextualizing Risk Weighing and Deference in the TikTok Decision

A federal court ruling against TikTok could ban it in the U.S. is essential to understand the impact of the decision.

David Rothkopf : How most Americans perceive the outcome in TikTok v. Garland hinges on a combination of five more slippery variables.

He says the DC Circuit granted substantial deference to the government’s claims of potential harm in Garland v. The final three variables are how much distrust (plus the intensity of it) people harbor toward the nation's leading foreign adversary, the People's Republic of China ( PRC ).

If TikTok were to disappear in the US , free speech would not end: People would find another platform to communicate.

Ultimately, much more than just legal tests are in play in Garland .

It would be profoundly ironic if the PRC , which censors internal dissent and blocks outside news exposing its flaws, used the First Amendment as a sword against the United States .