[juliuskiesian]

If the west is serious about its "universal values", that would the approach to take. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Yes, China banned Facebook, X etc for national security reasons, too. The Chinese government wants Chinese data to stay in China, and all of these social media platform would have to comply with Chinese law, including some requirements regarding censorship. Now it becomes more and more obvious that the west is not that different from China, the country it keeps bitching about on a daily basis. Censorship has been there for a long time, and now you have outright banning of a social network because it has roots in China.

You can accept one of these two things but not both:

A. National security is above freedom of speech B. Freedom of speech is a fundamental value of an open society and should in no scenario be given up

If you accept A, you have to be honest and admit that the banning of Facebook etc in China is completely justified. If you accept B, you have to just let TikTok operate normally as any other social network.