Agree with you on the fact that it was a questionable move.
But there is a big difference between excluding one source (which is directly and formally controlled by the Russian state).. and putting 15 year sentences on "publishing things that are not coming from the state news agency" (TAS)
BTW, and just FYI, if you want you can still read rt.com using 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8
Which totally makes sense. Russia is a dictatorship waging a war of aggression a democratic neighbour. Why should we give their state propaganda outlets any amplification?
I am reading Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>). Right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels, I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.
It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between the US and Russia.
Typical liberal democracy has 2 modes of work: peace time and war time.
In time of peace, value of human life is infinite, thus fredom of someone ends where freedom of somewhere else starts. Nobody can cut basic freedoms of someone else without court decision.
In time of war, this freedom creates vulnerability, so modern democraties have utalitarian laws designed to maximise survivability of nation as whole instead. It's not so important for behemoths, but it's essential for smaller countries. However, even in large and powerful democraties there are loopholes around basic freedoms for desperate times, such as natural disaster, or assault, or war, etc.
For example, it's not allowed to shut somebody else, except when defending or to save life of someone else. It's not allowed to force somebody else to keep silence, except when it puts lifes of others in danger, such as hate speech, or division by race, color of skin, nationality, religion, income, etc.
Russian outlets are doing just that. They are trying to portrait other nations as evils. They are telling to Ukrainians that Jews are rulling our country (half truth, many politics in Ukraine are Jews), then they tell to Jews that Ukrainians are Nazi, to induce fighting between nationalities, to start civil war.
This creates danger for everybody, so we cried for years to shut down Russian propaganda. Nobody listened to us until today.
I don't think the separation to the time of peace and time of war is even needed.
Ideally, any limitation of freedom is there to actually guarantee freedom, e.g. your freedom is limited in the form of an obligation to come to a police station to submit an explanation, but thanks to that the police can protect people from those that would otherwise limit their freedoms.
In similar vein, freedom of speech has to be limited, when some propaganda could lead to the decrease of the freedom.
It is tricky of course to judge what limitations are justified, but I find the sanctions against russian news sources on the quite safe side.
Freedom of speech is not a vulnerability. The war did not start because too many westerners were able to watch RT. Ukraine is not in danger because of any conflict between jews and nazis.
I work with Russians. I want to know what lies they're being told. Right now it's tough to ask them for daily updates because frankly a lot of them hate this situation very much and are saddened and embarrassed by what their country is doing. I would also find it difficult to ask.
While it is true that journalism has suffered recently, this is a false equivalent.
It is true that in the US, if you want to live in a bubble, you can. However, that's a choice. There are many, many other information channels. And they are free to say whatever they want.
The real issue in the US, is the fact that so many people choose to live in a bubble. I bumped into this Vox piece the other day, "How American conservatives turned against the vaccine", that illustrates quite well how it really is destroying the US
https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo