Just wait until they ban something you care about and then see if you are still in favor of governments deciding what apps you should have or not have.
You think this is a win for now and then in the future based on this same precedent, the Australian government will ban an app that you use regularly because they can and there will be nothing you can do.
When that happens, you'll go protest in the street against the big fascist Australian government, am I right?
> I know the Tit for Tat and privacy optics, and the shutdown of dissenting views on certain provable crimes in the ME may be bad sometimes
If you are going down that road, maybe you can explain when it's ok to ban dissenting views. Apparently, censorship is ok in some cases but not others? Who decides what should be talked about? You?
If censorship is fine in some cases but not in others how do you differentiate between good censorship and bad censorship?
After all, when China removes comments and articles about Tiananmen from the web, they are simply doing what is best for them. But in the west, we call them authoritarians, So what does that make us?
> the destruction of the social fabric of a society and the loss of development and inculcation of values of entire generations.
This vague statement is fear mongering and and a complete hyperbole and gross exaggeration. The same thing was said about newspapers then it was TV, then it was video games and now TikTok/social media.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Since not enough time has passed yet to see the effect of social media on multiple generations, then your argument is invalid.
Are there some downsides to social media? Sure. But it also enables marginalized people to connect with each other whereas in the past they would not have had a space to congregate.
It also helps uncover stories that people in power would prefer to not see the light of day. It also helps coordinate push back against new laws that in the past would have been approved without as much of a peep.
Your argument is basically, that we should throw the baby with the bath water.
It's not different than the populists parties who take complex issues and promise to solve everything with a simple solution when in fact most problems can't be fixed that way.