Step 1 is reduce your attack surface :) As a second point, democracies are propaganda campaigns - it's a feature, not a bug.
I believe that national cultural and societal norms play a key part in self-regulation. I think it's too much to ask for those balancing forces to work as effectively without first turning down the firehose.
By closing up we defend us from some threats, but open gates wide for others. Foreign actors compete against much stronger domestic media machines and as you mentioned have to operate in foreign cultural environments. Gaining true influence also always involves financial flows, not just propaganda campaigns, so it is sure possible to mitigate these threats without closing information flow.
Consider the opposite threat of democracies being undermined from within. If some internal "threat actor" gets control of the executive branch and of the media and also can prevent information flow from the outside, very little can be done against it.
I think it is critical to keep in mind this second possibility even when the first threat seems more urgent.
Propaganda is not necessarily to gain influence or money. Eg: Country x just wants to mess with people's heads and turn them on each other to weaken a rival country. Or: Country y runs a crafted propaganda campaign against a rival. As a result, some sector of its own economy starts doing better at the expense of its rival.
>If some internal "threat actor" gets control of the executive branch and of the media and also can prevent information flow from the outside, very little can be done against it.
I understand the scenario (it's far from new), but that's what the design of any particular democracy is supposed to minimise. Term limits, separation of government powers, etc.
Is that a made up problem? IMO: yes. That's a PARENT'S responsibility, not mine.
There are legitimate arguments in favor of a national firewall. Nobody is making them.
That's just as bad of an argument as so-called intellectual walls of text. Nothing needs to be done, the outcomes are not bad. My argument is as strong as yours.
Censoring view points is equivalent to signal boosting other view points. Why do you trust the UK government to select the correct view points given all the strong evidence to the contrary?
That would be an interesting discussion in itself, but even so - accessing material in isolation over the internet removes all of the benefits of cultural and community self-regulation.
>freely run undercover propaganda and/or destabilization campaigns
I'm of the opinion that WWW3 has already happened - it was a war for hearts and minds waged over the internet, and we've already lost.
Who is we, and who won? What did they win?
This is a very fancy way of saying “censorship”.
> I'm of the opinion that WWW3 has already happened - it was a war for hearts and minds waged over the internet, and we've already lost.
If the open, unfettered exchange of culture and ideas is such a threat to our system then we deserve to lose. If my only option is to be stuck in a system that enforces ideological conformity on its subjects, then I’d rather it be the Chinese system. At least it’s not so dysfunctional!
If we are receiving all of the downsides of a liberal democracy without the benefits, what’s the point anymore?
The question is: is there a defense against this?
Your answer currently is there is no defense because creating an illusion of unanimous ideological conformity counts as an exchange of ideas and that exchange must not be hindered.
The debate is over whether the right to conduct Sybil attacks is more precious than the right to freedom of thought. The question is vastly harder than many people in this thread seem to believe.
My personal take is that the right to freedom of thought is more fundamental and that the value of freedom of speech is via its support for freedom of thought.
I don't want the government to decide which thoughts I can access and which ones I can't, but I also understand that allowing a foreign power (let's say Russia, although "the US" works just as fine) to freely run undercover propaganda and/or destabilization campaigns without any recourse doesn't look good either. And while I agree with "when in doubt aim for the option with more freedom", I can understand those who share your position.