Page:TikTok v. Garland.pdf/8

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TIKTOK INC. v. GARLAND

Per Curiam

ous First Amendment activities, including content moderation, content generation, access to a distinct medium for expression, association with another speaker or preferred editor, and receipt of information and ideas.

We have recognized a number of these asserted First Amendment interests. See Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U. S. 707, 731 (2024) (“An entity ‘exercising editorial discretion in the selection and presentation’ of content is ‘engaged in speech activity.’ ” (quoting Arkansas Ed. Television Comm’n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 674 (1998); alteration omitted)); City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U. S. 43, 54–58 (1994) (“Our prior decisions have voiced particular concern with laws that foreclose an entire medium of expression.”); Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U. S. 47, 68 (2006) (“We have recognized a First Amendment right to associate for the purpose of speaking, which we have termed a ‘right of expressive association.’ ”); Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 143 (1943) (“The right of freedom of speech and press … embraces the right to distribute literature and necessarily protects the right to receive it.” (citation omitted)).^[1] And an effective ban on a social media platform with 170 million U. S. users certainly burdens those users’ expressive activity in a non-trivial way.

At the same time, a law targeting a foreign adversary’s control over a communications platform is in many ways different in kind from the regulations of non-expressive activity that we have subjected to First Amendment scrutiny. Those differences—the Act’s focus on a foreign government, the congressionally determined adversary relationship between that foreign government and the United States, and

↑ To the extent that ByteDance Ltd.’s asserted expressive activity occurs abroad, that activity is not protected by the First Amendment. See Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l Inc., 591 U. S. 430, 436 (2020) (“[F]oreign organizations operating abroad have no First Amendment rights.”).

[1] To the extent that ByteDance Ltd.’s asserted expressive activity occurs abroad, that activity is not protected by the First Amendment. See Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l Inc., 591 U. S. 430, 436 (2020) (“[F]oreign organizations operating abroad have no First Amendment rights.”).

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