It's really the only way to go. Otherwise, you get pissing matches. Brazil blocks WhatsApp. China blocks Facebook, GitHub, etc. Iran blocks so much stuff that people need to get data dumps via satellite TV. The US blocks a lot too, but mostly about gambling, "piracy", etc.
It has to do with some countries suck more, and some suck less.
Plenty of countries don't block anything. Like military aggression, child mortality, literacy rate, etc., that is one important data point about any country and its government.
If you don't know what "internet sovereignty" means, then how can you possibly claim that something had nothing to do with it?
Bad laws are bad laws. If you can avoid complying with them, you absolutely should.
I wonder if you'd say the same to Gandhi. "The law is for everyone so you can't evade taxes by making your own salt." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March