The risk is information warfare. It's difficult to know whether they've used it for that purpose yet, because there's a lack of transparency, which is actually part of the problem. But regardless, the risk is unacceptable, especially if the Taiwan or Philippines/Vietnam situations boil over. There's no historical precedent of a rival having such massive control over domestic consumption of information. The one thing we do know from the history of conflict is that all available tools will get used for that purpose (e.g. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8197).
I don't disagree, but for clarity, you appreciate this is totally contrary to the (formerly) popular "free speech" meme that used to be a source of pride for Americans?
Isn't it a bit funny that America can't manage to educate[1] its citizens so they are resilient to propaganda? Do you think it is all that difficult to do, if the government set it as a priority"?
[1] It's worse: they can't even try to. To me, this is peak hilarity, doubly so when combined with the conversations in this thread...which themselves are a consequence of the root problem. Oh my, the layers of irony.
It's the same one. The answer is yeah it is difficult. It is evident based on the fact that no country in the history hasn't been able to achieve.
"Making citizens to be resilient to propaganda"?
While we should try to do our best, it's also not mutually exclusive to remove bad propaganda. Yet you make it sound like the 2 actions are mutually exclusive for some reason.
Are you saying that it is a fact that it should necessarily point me in the direction that you think it should? It is literally not possible that the actions being taken toward TikTok are not a net good idea?
The risk is information warfare. It's difficult to know whether they've used it for that purpose yet, because there's a lack of transparency, which is actually part of the problem. But regardless, the risk is unacceptable, especially if the Taiwan or Philippines/Vietnam situations boil over. There's no historical precedent of a rival having such massive control over domestic consumption of information. The one thing we do know from the history of conflict is that all available tools will get used for that purpose (e.g. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8197).