Libgen domains are "seized", and tiktok "goes dark", but of course other countries "censor" porn or news outlets.
But still, not all blocks are born equal. That's a bit of beating around the bush to avoid going one level up in the abstraction of information controls. There's a thin line between content moderation at the platform level and mandatory hijacking of the DNS system via legal means.
If you squint, they are just a different configuration in the phase space of distributed technical systems, corporations operating in nation-states, and national laws.
(I agree with you about authoritarianism in a political sense, but I'm trying to look at the informational "water" in which we're swimming in).
One could argue in the US that this was very useful to the new regime gaining popularity.
In many European countries this still includes regulations for publishers - while social media are somehow excluded from these regulations (and that explains why society is in state that is now when lies are not confronted but amplified).
Is Reddit a great place? Eh. Is it critical to daily life in Indonesia? Of course not. But what I witnessed was censorship, full-stop.
I understand that the U.S. is not blocking TikTok at the DNS level. And that there are valid concerns over sharing user data and government influence over TikTok. But in my view, this is still censorship. Instead of allowing individuals decide whether or not to use TikTok, my government decided to ban it.
The whole argument over selling TikTok to a U.S.-based company is bullshit, imo. What kind of precedent is that? I use online services from all over the world, and in doing so decide to allow my usage to fall (to some extent) under the jurisdiction of that country.
This sounds like one of those irregular verb conjugations English is so full of: I ban; you go dark; he/she/it censors.
(There are also a whole host of other service providers that might be put into the position of being censors if Tiktok were to ignore the law and continue working for sidedloaded apps).
It's probably worth adding, though, that Libgen, TikTok, Porn and News Outlets would all be censored/banned/deliberately-excluded-from-culture-by-people-with-legitimate-power for different reasons.
I think TikTok and News Outlets would be the most closely aligned in this sense.
1. Libgen domains are "seized" - only the domains got seized, the website is still operational.
2. tiktok "goes dark", yes because it was an action of tiktok to go dark with the hope that they will be operational next week. Nobody banned them and even Biden said he would not enforce it so they could have simply do nothing and wait for the next week.
3. "censor" porn or news outlets, I think thats common usage.