This is TikTok only after a despotic government created a law about fake news that can result in a 15 year jail sentence.

your characterization of TikTok is shallow, its a social media platform. Just like every other social media platform people want to share and talk about the world along with their silly dances and you miss the point of OP and the article that it isn't about what TikTok should or shouldn't be, but that the limits set on free speech result in a neutering of of the social media platform, and is one example of many apps/website/platforms/news stations that will have been effected by this.

TikTok has a lot of CCP propaganda in it (fake influencers paid by the CCP). It's not just a happy place to see cute dance videos.

This goes into some of said propaganda in it, and how they have more "soft" propaganda in the US version of TikTok vs more intense propaganda in the Chinese version of the app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aYCG4vEe5s

You are parroting an old tired “it’s only protected speech when it’s the government meddling”, and to that I ask, did you not read the part where TikTok is doing this because the Russian government decided to jail people over “fake news”? Does this not constitute a textbook violation of the freedom of speech?

What freedom of speech?

That freedom doesn't exist in two of the three countries involved here.

What is this reply? The complaint is that the freedom doesn't exist.

You seem to be implying that people just don't know, when it's exactly what they're talking about?

"A textbook violation of the freedom of speech" assumes there is a "textbook" to violate.

There isn't one at all here, so why is there any debate at all on the freedom of speech being violated?

Your parent is still right, though: that's what the internet largely is. Companies that try to make a quick buck by grabbing attention. And while there are still many other sites that allow open discussion, Russia can block them quite easily for a very comfortable majority of the population.

On my TikTok page I watch stand up comedians, cooking videos, comedy sketches, political commentary, engineering videos, goofy out of context clips, song mashups, video game footage, and yes very occasionally a dance video.