As has been suggested, TikTok could sell its US operations and gain the protection of the Bill of Rights that way. But they haven't.
“They aren’t the publishers.”
Yes the users are. TikTok is just a public platform/soapbox where users can go post/publish their own personal material. Just like us here...
Did the FR just publish that reply to me? No you did. They only supplied the means to do so. “Post” = Publish. In fact on our forum the post button actually says “Publish”. Same at a lot of platforms.
Look at the bottom of every thread page:
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