That indirectness is exactly why it's not. The first amendment ensures you can express what you want, but you're not owed a platform.

But can the government actively interfere with my communication by banning the platform? If the government notices that a lot of critics are organizing over Discord, can they ban Discord, because they're not banning speech specifically, only a platform used to spread the speech?

I think what you raise is something the courts should consider if the government were trying to shut down a platform because of what it's users were doing on it. But it's not a live issue in this case. There is no allegation that the US seeks to suppress TikTok because of what Americans are posting on it. TikTok isn't saying the government is doing that and I don't believe the government is seeking to control the speech of TikTok users. The consern seems to be more about who controls the algorithm and data collection (a foreign state with adversarial interests) and it seems to me that it has nothing to do with anything Americans are posting on TikTok. I mean the content on TikTok isn't all that political or revolutionary

> There is no allegation that the US seeks to suppress TikTok because of what Americans are posting on it.

Of course there is. It’s obvious that a huge chunk of the momentum behind the TikTok ban stems from a desire to suppress anti-Israel content.

If that were the case, then why was ByteDance given the option to divest?

Because the drafters knew they wouldn't/couldn't/aren't allowed to/would only be able to do so to someone more under the thumb of the US government?

The actual purpose of a law or system is the actual outcome of it and not what it's dressed up to say its purpose is. A law that says "we don't allow mosques unless they're owned by people not descended from countries on a terrorism watch list" is still an infringement of the freedom of religion. We don't have to pretend there's good faith here.

> Because the drafters knew they wouldn't/couldn't/aren't allowed to/would only be able to do so to someone more under the thumb of the US government?

This is at best vacuously true. Since China is the most powerful adversary of the US, you'd say that literally anyone else is more under the thumb of the US government than they are.

Because if they were owned by an American company it’s much less likely they’d allow that content to go viral.

The law didn't require the new owner to be in America. Anywhere other than Iran, North Korea, China, or Russia would have been allowed.

How is that incompatible? Who would control it

Given how laws and American rights have been established to work. Yes, absolutely. They just need a legally acceptable reason to do so separate from the speech. Banning a platform because of speech they don't want isn't allowed, but banning a platform for other reasons is, even if that platform also happens to facilitate speech.

Like with tik tok, the ban itself isn't a speech issue because there's nothing bytedance can change about it's communication to not be banned, it's an ownership problem.

They could filter Palestine content, then although some people still want to ban it, it won't be easy

> can the government actively interfere with my communication by banning the platform?

Yes. Foreign-ownership rules have been a thing in America for almost a century [1].

[1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli...

By your very broad definition of infringement if a newspaper refuses to pay it's taxes, and then the government shuts down the newspaper down for that, this would be infringement.

Clearly it's not.

Yes, the government can make laws that effect speech platforms just like we can make them pay taxes.