Comment by derefr

Well, yes, but — again, from the perspective of a politician — if foreign agent provocateurs are forced to rely on locals to spread their messages, then you can just arrest those locals. Unlike the foreigners, the locals are under your jurisdiction. This creates a chilling effect against accepting money from foreigners to repeat those foreigners' messages.

And to be clear, "making sure that only [legislative jurisdiction]-sponsored disinformation is available" is almost always the whole point of laws like this — and what I was assuming the UK was going for here. No state wants to prevent the spread of their own propaganda; they want state propaganda to be the only legal propaganda.

Remember that your phrasing I was responding to here is "the only way this works is[...]". I think what the UK is doing here can work very well indeed to achieve their goals — it's just a question of what those goals are. Which, I think, is where we differ; I may have a far more cynical view of those goals than you.