Legal experts say a TikTok ban without specific evidence violates the First Amendment
NPRLegal experts say a TikTok ban without specific evidence violates the First Amendment Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Dwyer/AP Michael Dwyer/AP Forcing TikTok to shut down its American operations over unspecified national security concerns would represent a violation of the First Amendment, according to six legal scholars surveyed by NPR. Sponsor Message NPR reached out to a host of legal scholars who specialize in constitutional law, and the half-dozen who responded all said the U.S. government forcing the closure of TikTok on vague national security grounds would most likely infringe on TikTokkers First Amendment rights. Sponsor Message Douglas Laycock, a constitutional law expert at the University of Virginia, said the government will likely try to make the case that this is a "content neutral" regulation of a business owned by a foreign adversary that poses a national security threat to the U.S., not a case about censoring speech. When asked what is the most important unknown in the case, Jameel Jaffer, who leads the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said: "The government's purported secret evidence."