Censorship is definitely a sign of authoritarianism, and a strong state might be too, depending on what you mean by it, but not necessarily?

In reality, despite what the dictionary says, "authoritarian" means, "organized group we don't like".

Censorship is ubiquitous it just comes in different forms. The most powerful and insidipus is the kind you don't even think it censorship. For example, will you lose your job for standing up for Palestine? Will you get paid to be a journalist if you are too critical of the ruling class? When the electronic commons is actually controlled by private corporations, do you really have online speech protections? Is sinophobia the only reason TikTok is getting threatened with a ban? Whose voices are heard at city council meetings? Who gets the ear of politicians?

These are all forms of censorship, but most of them are treated as normal, even righteous and justified.

States that fight for independence rapidly find that the global monopolistic empire automatically dominates all media narratives and funds NGOs to undermine their projects. Do you expect them to let that expand and destroy their country? Censorship is an expression of authority, but does that mean it is always wrong or particularly bad? Forcing out invaders is also an expression of authority, as is organizing defense, social programs, literacy campaigns.

and a strong state might be too

The strong states are usually just doing the functions of private industry in "non-authoritarian" countries but in a way that better serves the people and are resilient to US interference.

And as liberal democracy seem to be the 'goal' of states to achieve

Liberal democracy is the most effective producer of genocide in history and is really just rule by the capitalist class that pretends to be of the masses. States seeking independence from the US must eschew it by definition, as they will otherwise be coerced into the US-dominated order.

authoritarian is not at all a useless category since it's the opposite of democracy.

Liberal democracies are, in reality, the most authoritarian countries. They impose the interests of the capitalist ruling class based on military and financial power with little regard for the horrors it inflicts. But you are correct about how the term is used, what it means despite its definition - "this is what we do and it is good, the system we don't like is bad".