Is censorship the new normal?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is censorship the new normal?". Your opponent's style: Matt Taibbi

I would define censorship as the government interfering with your freedom to express what you say. I think it is because America has bought tiktok to influence it's algorithm

You're living in a fantasy if you think the TikTok situation proves government censorship is the new normal. This is exactly backwards - what we're seeing is the *absence* of real regulatory backbone, not authoritarian overreach. First off, America didn't "buy" TikTok - Congress passed a law forcing ByteDance to sell or face a ban. That's not censorship, that's basic national security housekeeping that should have happened years ago. We let a Chinese intelligence operation masquerade as a dance app for half a decade while it harvested data on 170 million Americans. The real story here is how toothless our government has become. We're so paralyzed by "free speech" theater that we can't even regulate obvious threats. Meanwhile, China bans every major American platform without blinking. They're playing chess while we're debating whether moving pawns violates the First Amendment. And let's be honest about what TikTok actually is - it's not your neighborhood soapbox, it's a foreign algorithm designed to amplify whatever content serves Beijing's interests. When the "free speech" platform is controlled by an authoritarian regime, defending it isn't principled - it's naive. The new normal isn't censorship - it's regulatory cowardice dressed up as constitutional purity while actual threats operate in plain sight.