LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Is a ban on TikTok in the U.S. censorship? The government says because the app is owned by a Chinese company, there are national security concerns. It claims it has credible evidence about why this is a concern but won't share it with the public over national security concerns. First Amendment lawyer Jacob Huebert says that's alarming. He's with the Texas-based Liberty Justice Center. It's described as a conservative legal nonprofit. And it filed a petition on behalf of a TikTok content creator to stop the ban. Huebert says the ban aims to control the content the government thinks Americans should be consuming based on something that it says could maybe happen in the future.
JACOB HUEBERT: Under the First Amendment, that's a totally illegitimate ground for shutting down speech. The First Amendment exists so the government can't suppress speech that it thinks goes against its interests. So this national security justification isn't their real reason, and also, even if it were, it wouldn't be good enough here because the threat is not an immediate one.
FADEL: But should there be guard rails on not just TikTok, but, you know, in this bigger sort of theoretical concern around misinformation that can be dangerous. Should there be guard rails, on not just TikTok, but other social media?
HUEBERT: The government absolutely should not be imposing rules on the ideas that are shared on social media platforms. The First Amendment exists to stop the government from making official judgments about what's true and what's false and what ideas are good and what ideas are bad. We're supposed to figure these things out for ourselves. And if people think that there are too many bad ideas being shared, the remedy for that is to share good ideas or to inform people. If you think they're being manipulated, educate them on how to sort out truth from falsehood.
FADEL: Digital literacy.
HUEBERT: It's not to just suppress ideas.
FADEL: Now, as I mentioned, there's bipartisan support from conservatives and liberals in the government in Congress for this law. But there's also bipartisan opposition to the law for the things that you have just pointed out. I wonder - you know, you described Liberty Justice Center as a conservative legal nonprofit. I think the ACLU describes themselves quite differently, but you are on the same side on this argument. Do you often find yourself on the same side as the ACLU?
HUEBERT: Well I should make clear, we don't describe ourselves as a conservative nonprofit. No doubt some people do, but we don't do that.
FADEL: But is it - would you say that's a fair description?
HUEBERT: No, because we're on the side of liberty regardless of where conservatives, Republicans, liberals, or Democrats might be on a given issue. And so sometimes that means we do align with the ACLU. And sometimes it means we align with conservative groups. It really comes down to what's going to protect people's liberty when we're deciding what cases we're going to take on.
FADEL: When I looked at who has banned TikTok, I found India, Nepal, Afghanistan. Afghanistan did it, it says, to protect the youth from being misled. That's how it would describe the reason for its ban. This attempt by the U.S. - is it any different?
HUEBERT: This is the sort of thing you would expect from a repressive regime, a regime that doesn't trust people to hear any ideas they want to hear or see any content that they want to see. If the government is going to start banning platforms, then we're going to start looking like those more repressive regimes and less like we've always looked, as a beacon of free speech and liberty for the world.
FADEL: Jacob Huebert is the president of the legal nonprofit group Liberty Justice Center. Thank you so much for your time.
HUEBERT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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