First Amendment Forum highlights
The topic of what counts as lawful versus unconstitutional censorship was highlighted at last week’s First Amendment Forum titled, “Banning TikTok: A Question of Times and Balance…Between National Security and the Free Press.”
CSUN Journalism Prof. Elizabeth Blakey offered remarks on whether the national security exception was properly applied. She said: “In TikTok v. Garland, the court admits openly that there is no solid evidence, there’s only the possibility of a national security problem, because (TikTok) collects data behind the scenes, as all platforms do…. Based on the ease with which the government (has) allowed TikTok to continue for months, it seems that national security is (just) a pretext. They’re using a very weak definition of national security that should not be an exception to freedom of speech.”
Brenda Benjamin (CSUN Class of ’26), who compared the TikTok case to the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times v. United States, said: “It’s important to remember, to keep asking ourselves: Should national security really be the catch-all when it comes to situations like these? Is national security always going to be the bigger threat or can the First Amendment finally prevail?”
Dr. Nolan Higdon of UC Santa Cruz and Project Censored was the keynote speaker. Higdon said: “The real critical question about censorship is not what you want to get rid of or how bad is the speech. It’s who do you trust to be in charge of getting rid of it? Who do you trust to be the person to say, “Yeah, this is false. This is problematic, but this other stuff is OK”? Because whoever you give that power to, has the power to control information.” Dr. Higdon pointed out that censorship is not necessarily about the content that’s targeted. It’s the critical question of who is given the power of being the censor – the government or the people
Sable Holt (CSUN Mass Communication Class of ’24) spoke about the negative effects of the ban on creatives. She said: “I can speak for my generation, Generation Z, from what I’ve seen on TikTok (there have been) a lot of different testimonies and discourse. TikTok used to be a very fun platform. It seemed more like escapism. People are now just not really caring.”