The US Government Has Banned Information Platforms Long Before TikTok. It Didn’t Go Well.

The Justice Department’s effort to bar Americans from access to TikTok—a matter to be argued before the Supreme Court tomorrow—is possibly the most contentious first-amendment case of the social media age.

But it’s not a new one. The United States has enacted widespread bans on publications and information sources in the past, for reasons similar or identical to the ones driving the TikTok action now.

Foremost is national security. The feds argue that the Chinese government enjoys unfettered access to American users’ data (which the app’s owner ByteDance denies). The second is ideology. Proponents of the ban say that TikTok is a pro-communist influence machine that, to quote Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), is “able to control what our young people see and say and think.”

For free-speech proponents, these arguments harken back to the dawn of the internet, to the Cold War, and far earlier than that, when federal lawmakers blocked public access to information and ideas on the grounds they were protecting their own citizens.

“The effect of these restrictions was to limit Americans access to information and ideas and to cause others to doubt our country’s dedication to its ideals—rightly so,” George Wang, staff attorney at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, told ADWEEK. “We ended those ill-advised practices, which are now viewed with embarrassment and shame.”

Below is a look back at five of those restrictions in reverse chronological order—and why they were, for the most part, failures.

The Communications Decency Act

What It did: Passed in 1996 to coincide with the exploding popularity of the internet, the CDA was meant to protect Americans under the age of 18 by banning any “comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.”

How it Turned Out: The Supreme Court struck the law down one year later, ruling it to be overly broad in restricting First and Fifth Amendment rights. The CDA would be replaced by the Child Online Protection Act in 1998, but that law too would be struck down several years later, on much the same grounds.

The McCarran-Walter Act

What It did: Passed in 1952 as part of the Red Scare, the law barred individuals with viewpoints “prejudicial to the public interest” from entering the U.S. While the law did not restrict public access to information, it eclipsed public dialogue by refusing entry to writers with socialist sympathies, including Doris Lessing, Graham Greene, and Gabriel García Márquez. President Truman called the law “a step backward.”

How it Turned Out: The law ended with the Immigration Act of 1965, which no longer scrutinized ideological viewpoints before permitting immigration.

The Office of Censorship

What It did: During WWII, the federal government severely restricted all war-related news in newspapers and radio. Reporters were instructed to avoid topics that might damage morale at home and skew their stories to focus on victory and heroism.

How it Turned Out: The censored news coverage led to a degree of apathy on the home front that the government realized was damaging the war effort. Two years into the war, the government wound up allowing reporting on the brutality of the war—meaning, accurate reporting.

The Hays Code

What It did: Fearing the government’s move toward banning certain movies as immoral or obscene, Hollywood created this self-censorship body in 1930. It edited scripts and forced the elimination of any scenes that dealt not only with sex and violence but also childbirth, heavy drinking, cursing, interracial relationships, or anything considered anti-Christian, including poking fun at priests and pastors.

How it Turned Out: The coming of TV and the popularity of foreign films meant competition for movies, which loosened up the censorship so it could continue to draw audiences. In 1968, the Hays Code disappeared, replaced by the somewhat gentler moving rating system.

The Trading with the Enemy Act

What It did: Passed when the U.S. entered WWI in 1917, the law gave the president sweeping powers to restrict trade with aggressor nations. These powers included banning books, magazines, newspapers, and movies created in specified countries. Intended as a temporary measure only, the law survived into the Cold War, when it was used to restrict the entry of materials from socialist countries.

How it Turned Out: In 1977, Congress cut back the president’s power to wartime only.

The Comstock Act

What It did: Passed in 1873, it prohibited the Post Office from transporting any “obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and filthy book[s] …. or other mail matter containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing.” The law didn’t just ban nude pictures, it banned information on sex education and birth control as well. In 1921, Comstock was used to keep James Joyce’s novel Ulysses from bookstores.

How it Turned Out:  Women’s rights and other groups filed enough court challenges (notably Griswold v. Connecticut, which established a right to contraception) to render the law toothless. All but unenforceable in the digital age, the law is still on the books, however, and some worry that it will be used to prohibit the mailing of abortifacient medications.