[aprilthird2021]

> foreign influence targeting the actual election process is generally viewed as over the line of acceptability.

Nope. "Influence" is just content. Free people can consume whatever content they want, even if it's about elections. Period. End of story. Either you're free or you're controlled.

[Fade_Dance]

That's a severe oversimplification. The world isn't black and white.

Take free speech, which has certain restrictions in most societies. Some societies draw the lines further than others.

Likewise, when it comes to elections, the election process is controlled to some degree. One can't, for example, broadcast misinformation about mail in ballots, because that would threaten the integrity of the democratic process itself.

There are countless ad absurdum arguments that could be made here, but that one will suffice. Say a foreign entity broadcasts misleading information about mail in ballots as part of a wider campaign to convince certain sections of the population that the post office is changing votes. Would banning that activity change a society from a "free" state to a "controlled" state like some sort of binary switch? Of course not, and typing "Period. End of story" is a completely asinine and amateur argument to support that. Devolution into semantics.

What I'm highlighting is that in most democracies, there is a sacrosanct ring around the democratic process itself - arguably necessary to at least some extent - and in the context of misinformation/state meddling/etc that would fall under the category of "election interference" if a certain bar is cleared. Ideally a high bar, so the red tape is as minimal as possible, but when it comes to state intelligence agencies specifically targeting an election itself, there is not just a coherent argument for it, it's the way it is in most democracies worldwide.

[aprilthird2021]

You and I both know the US was not interested in forcefully taking over TikTok because of the possibility they could broadcast misinformation about mail in ballots near to election time

That is a crime because it is fraud (election fraud). If this arose on TikTok the great thing is, you can prosecute the creators who post such things. China, by promoting such stuff, in fact would make the prosecution job easier.

People in these comments talk about "influencing" people to have certain thoughts and thus change how they vote by showing them stuff that might change their minds. That is the very idea of free speech itself and it should never be under government control. Not fraud but exposure.