"provided by a foreign adversary"
is quite a bit different than
"provided by a citizen living in a region controlled by a foreign adversary".
yes, a russian news site has a vested interest in supporting the russian govt, but its not the same as a web portal owned, operated, and advertised by a division of the russian govt. in other words, fox news's website is a lot different than the white house website.
> "provided by a foreign adversary" is quite a bit different than "provided by a citizen living in a region controlled by a foreign adversary".
There's no meaningful difference.
And even if there was one, public discourse in the United States makes it very clear that it doesn't see a meaningful distinction between the CCP and TikTok, between the Kremlin, and, say RT.
It's utterly antithetical to everything western civilization stands for to imprison someone for reading. Even if what they are reading is foreign propaganda.
It's shit straight out of the playbook of Stalin's[1] USSR[2]. And half this forum is arguing for it!
This isn't a slow-boiling the frog moment, it's shoving us right into the incinerator.
[1] Death to spies, wreckers, saboteurs and other counter-revolutionaries that oppose the freest country in the history of the world.
[2] Even in Putin's Russia, you don't go to prison for reading American propaganda. This level of insecurity is baffling.
> It's utterly antithetical to everything western civilization stands for
mccarthyism, the sedition act of 1918, and the espionage act of 1917 come to mind. whatever your understanding is of what western civilization stands for - and what you are arguing we are losing - are ideals that were created long after those previous acts came and went.
my point is that a set of ideals will be at risk if it is too rigid - western civilization has succeeded in part due to its flexibility in difficult circumstances. in other words, it is better to have waxes and wanes to the freedoms available to a society, than to be rigid in a set of beliefs and watch the society be lost to history.
Why turn back the clock to 1917? Why not to internment camps? Slavery? Genocide? Witch burnings?
I'd rage just as much against barbarians trying to bring any of those things back, too. This isn't a question of flexibility. This isn't some existential trolley problem crisis. This is reactionary authoritarianism from a few morally bankrupt elites running a waning empire, sold under the excuse of attacking a foreign adversary.
yes, a russian news site has a vested interest in supporting the russian govt, but its not the same as a web portal owned, operated, and advertised by a division of the russian govt. in other words, fox news's website is a lot different than the white house website.