Strange take. Some kind of philosophical purity says that we should allow foreign adversaries to influence domestic audiences because we should be able to counter that influence with out own?
It’s like saying you should allow someone to punch you because you “should” be able to punch yourself harder.
Consider how this spat looks from the perspective of a European.
The US controls Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, Snapchat, Whatsapp.
Owner of Twitter has office space in the white house, and is calling for the overthrow of elected European governments and deliberately spreading misinformation.
Then the US sees one non-american-owned social media network and decides it's got to be banned.
Perhaps those Europeans should consider whether they want foreigners influencing domestic audiences?
The mistake here is seeing the US action as a universal moral statement and therefore hypocritical.
The US action was simply pragmatic. There is no claim of universality or morality.
I very much agree other countries should also look at US hegemony through a pragmatic lens: is this a net harm? It’s kind of funny that you raise it as a gotcha.
So, letting divergent opinions from other countries and from different entities is like being punched? You know that most world uses social media from foreign entities, right? Curious how until few years ago, when there were no relevant competitors outside US, the dominant discourse was that only tyranical countries would do this.
It’s like saying you should allow someone to punch you because you “should” be able to punch yourself harder.