The thing is, for most countries, having the US policy has been far more liberal than what's allowed to be discussed locally. And the set of things you can discuss on social media is far broader than what you can get into the local media discussion. Having SF set policy has (mostly) been amazing for queer liberation, for example.

The downside is incredibly loud, toxic, inorganic propaganda wars. And it really does spread everywhere. I have NYT, WSJ, and Bloomberg blocked on Twitter and still have a very up to date sense of what's happening in US politics. And suddenly there's a big anti-"woke" movement in the UK without anyone bothering to define what they think "woke" is.