The USSR had significant reach back at the time, and a quite ideological one. The last 25 years allowed the US to relax significantly.
According to wikipedia, China is blocking most of the sites you mentioned. I was surprised to see that Russia does not.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_i...
Re:TikTok goes dark in the US
by red_admiral on Sunday January 19, 2025 @02:58AM
(#42754913)
Didn't the USSR have a pretty good "foreign relations" propaganda team?
Has.
Re:TikTok goes dark in the US
by sirisaysgpt on Sunday January 19, 2025 @03:01AM
(#42754928)
It's been pretty entertaining to see all the China (and Russia) supporters crying on this thread. It's been a horrible for year for China after all, they needed some good news, but got none.
I'm not a "China supporter" so much as I am simply stating reality for what it is.
America banned TikTok because it's not something America can control, that really is all there is to it. It's even stated right there in the law: Sell TikTok to America and they can do business.
The editorial lines of Fox News are completely different to CNN and PBS. Different subreddits are completely different. The idea that they're all part of some conspiracy run by the US government is very strange.
The goal is to make everyone wear American blue jeans and listen to American pop music, the details are irrelevant.
TikTok serves to make everyone wear Chinese blue jeans and listen to Chinese pop music, and America does not like that.
Putting it another way: America can dish it out but they can't take it.
It’s only about blue jeans? It’s not about pissing Americans off so they are less productive and overall are less able to defend against additional attacks?
China is going for a Culture Victory after watching America land Culture Victory after Victory for the past better part of a century. America does not appreciate the challenge, not the least because it can't compete anymore.
Also, seeing as you took "blue jeans" quite literally I am going to assume you never played Civilization. For being a child-oriented game filled with memes it's actually very insightful about human psychology, I recommend playing it.
That has been happening since time immemorial.
What is actually the issue is that for the first time ever in the post-WW2 Pax Americana era, media is being weaponized by a powerful non-American state (China).
America does through Facebook, Mysterious Twitter X, Reddit, CNN, Fox News, PBS, et al. what China does through TikTok. If anything, other countries should also seriously consider banning foreign media and realize insofar as future geopolitics that Pax Americana is ending.