Even without the government dictating content policies, the threat is still there. Take how the Chinese government has addressed the exact same concern from their side. That is to say, they've banned US social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and who's to say if it's solely because of the allegations that those platforms follow US government dictations.

A forseeable future is one where Americans are using VPN to access Tik Tok and then we see some government officials clamoring for an American version of the GFW.