> we're a liberal democracy.

Liberal democracy is not something you are, it is something you do.

It is the sum set of beliefs, actions, and understandings of the country that results in the state of its governance.

Freedom is not an inevitable result of "being" a democracy.

Freedom is an aggregate result of the way individuals act.

> China blocks the world-wide internet because it follows a totalitarian ideology.

What you might not have considered is that if a foreign power is able to influence your fellow citizens, those fellow citizens might be weaponized against you. Before America was a republic it was part of a monarchy and individual citizens became convinced it was worth fighting to change. That was a good change, but citizens might just as easily be convinced that maybe fast results and less bureaucracy and rules are what we need and it's worth putting a strongman into power for faster results: https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-strongman-fantasy

Freedom is also the freedom to be ignorant. What happens if too many people are ignorant?

Freedom is also the freedom to do the wrong thing. What happens if too many people do the wrong thing?

Freedom is not a pure concept synonymous with "good." Freedom can bend, but it can also break.

Don’t know why it’s so difficult for some people to understand the paradox of tolerance. Allowing your media to be controlled by a foreign totalitarian adversary is a quick way to having your institutions and society undermined by them.

That is the standard argument for totalitarianism: safety and stability of society, at the expense of freedom. The US is doing something different.

Did the USSR have radio and TV stations in the US during the cold war? During WWII the US had a censorship operation - was that totalitarian?

Interestingly, this very question was asked and addressed here on HN 32 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39428141

Yes, by me - thank you for looping that discussion back in.

It was meant to be rhetorical now - as the USSR did not have TV or radio stations in the US (but, yes, you could get USSR newspapers). Differentiating between different "attack vectors" isn't new.

Censoring foreign speech is also a slide towards totalitarianism...

Imagine if the U.S. banned a Chinese book series because we were concerned it would "undermine our institutions and society". Does that sound like a free country?

The problem here is that Tiktok is not merely "promoting totalitarianism", it is actively spying on it's users and sending their data to the Chinese government. Don't you think this warrants a ban?

Sure, certainly, if it's also the case that all the US apps that are actively spying on their users and selling that data to the US three letter agencies also warrant banning.

From recent reports that's apparently most, if not all, of them.

As a quick follow up query, can Chinese, UK, Australian, etc. companies buy up data on US citizens from brokers? Is that OK, it's probably for business reasons after all .. or friendly five eyes cross border mutual spying to take the stink off.

You have to look at it from a national security perspective rather than a moral one. A foreign adversary spying on your citizens is terrible. The only reason most countries dont ban US apps is either they are already friendly with the US or incapable of developing a local alternative.