Because if we’re willing to export propaganda and unwilling to receive any in return then we’re a nation of hypocrites.
To the degree war and competition are hypocritical, sure. All you’ve done is expanded the definition of hypocrisy to meaninglessness.
China’s a geopolitical adversary. We didn’t need to go to war with the Soviets for the Cold War to be real. (Also what on earth is a “culture war” in geopolitical terms?)
> If we censor the CCP just like they censor us then we are just as authoritarian as them
Only to someone with no sense of scale. Again, you can do that. But you expand the definition of authoritarianism to cover just about any human activity.
So start referring to America as "softer authoritarians than China" instead of this charade you put up now. Then people would be less miffed by your hypocrisy.
Everything political that comes out of America is such self-serving slop that I don't understand how anyone above age 30 buys it. When mass-censorship and consensus manufacturing is enacted on mainstream social media (oh sorry, when the US does it it's just "the algorithm" and "alignment", not a mean evil dictatorship), when Americans are forbidden from having a chance to vote for their preferred president in Colorado, when you wage a proxy war against Russia to the last Ukrainian man, when you get Ukraine to ban all opposition political parties, when you bomb countries for decades in the Middle East, every time it's done in the name of democracy.
It's a bit exhausting and frankly, pathetic, to watch people literally talking it into existence out of thin air.
It would be nice if people universally rejected smoking, but there are social/economic benefits to banning it because statistics.
Freedom of speech != freedom to operate a company or platform.
I think most people are aware of the CCP influence on TikTok. I hope reports like these make people question if they’re being manipulated on the platform. People should always question the validity of the media they consume.
Foreign adversaries do not have free speech rights in the United States.
You win a war of ideas by presenting better ideas, not by censoring bad ideas.