What is the nature of the risk?
> You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis...
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.
Since you imply it's not difficult to do, which country has educated their citizens to be resilient to propaganda?
Don't forget: to accomplish something, you (typically) must first try.
"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.
How many have tried, and what did they try?
Contrast this with the attention and funding the war machine gets, or the science machinery.
Regarding education, we should do that too. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.
There might be flaws or other explanations. This is just tentative evidence that should push you in one direction more than the other.
China hasn't fought a war in 40 years. In recent years, there have been some border skirmishes with India between unarmed soldiers (it's not even clear which side initiated them) and some naval confrontations about a few islands with no shots fired, but that's about it. Meanwhile, the US has been fighting wars all around the world.
Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia, filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US.
The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe was back in 2022.
The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is what it's appropriately doing here.