Social Media platforms have been censoring freedom of speech on a corporate level for a while now. And they can because they are private companies, even if they are publicly traded. Until laws prohibit them from shutting down people they don't like they will continue to do so.
As to Americans being brainwashed by propaganda news, that's an entirely different subject than whether or not social media sites are censoring freedom of speech. Countries like Russia & North Korea have state-run media, as does China, Pakistan, and lots of other countries. America has freedom of the press, which allows the news organizations to cover whatever they want, whenever they want. I do believe brainwashing takes place, but it's not "state sponsored" or "nationalized". In fact, in America it's the other way around. Here the Media sponsors, and covers for, the political party that they are trying to help gain or keep power. For instance, OAN is in the tank for the Republican party, Fox News has moved to the middle a lot but still leans Republican. All other major news organizations in the country in both TV and print are in the tank for the Democrat party. Which way those organizations "lean" is usually traced back to their owners. But none of it is "state run" and all censorship and brainwashing is done on a corporate level. And they are very successful at it, I might add.
Companies "spying" for the sake of marketing is entirely different than what Tik Tok is being accused of doing. The US believes they have credible evidence to suggest that the Chinese government is using Tik Tok to spy, for intelligence gathering and to what end, who knows. It's not a TRUMP thing since both Democrats and Republicans launched an investigation in November:
"....in early November, the United States government opened an investigation into the app to determine it posed a national security threat due to how “the company stores the personal data of its users and whether it is censoring politically sensitive content.” Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) prompted the investigation." - The Daily Wire
The government felt the same way about Huawei. Look, the communist Chinese government likes to keep their grubby hands in every Chinese industry and their actions on a global scale lead the US intelligence communities to believe their intentions are hostile towards US interests. Like it or not, Trump didn't come up with this Tik Tok ban on his own. The CIA is feeding him information and evidence to support that information, and he is simply acting on that intelligence to protect American interests.
