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.