There is a difference between a biased news source and flat-out censorship. Equating us to China is disingenuous and loopy.
In our culture there is no need to suppress the bad news, it can just be drowned down in a flurry of stupid news, contradictory statements and "why do you hate freedom" kind of finger pointing.
If random people speaking freely has close to no effect on the leading class, there is not much need to suppress free speech.
I mean, do you really believe that it's irrelevant that the conversation we are having now, without any fears, I assume, would be extremely risky in China?
With that in mind, from what I get anything political or touching the PRC will be heavily scrutinized, anything else nobody will bat an eye.
In that respect, the fact we can discuss this freely is nice. But I’d be cautious to declare we’re freer than them just on that fact alone. I just don’t know.
Compound to that, the fact that we went through series of very serious crisis (the banking crash 10 years ago comes to my mind) with almost no long lasting structural change of the same order as the crisis, despite people’s engagement.
This to me brings the question: how much impact does free public discussion have on the real world ? Does it even have a real impact on public opinion ? Or are we just set in a sandbox, toying with whatever we want, while everything else rolls around ?
Before the crisis both the right and the left had achieved their main political goal (capitalism and the welfare state, respectively), and both accepted the status quo.
It is astonishing that after a crisis that was caused by capitalist greed, it was the welfare state that was compromised.
This has damaged the establishment left, which is being replaced by populists that, although often branded as far-right, are big defenders of the welfare state and "the people".
The western liberal capitalist elites, which control the media, are struggling to contain these populists. So, although, in particular, the US media is under their control, they couldn't stop Trump, whose supporters in the fringe media had no trouble spreading their opinions.
Although a westerner, I have first-hand experience of life in an authoritarian country.
Of course, I will never claim that this makes me an expert, but an interesting observation that I have made is that educated people in dictatorships seem not to believe anything from their country's media.
So far so good. The interesting bit is that they seem to give enormous credibility to rumours and conspiracy theories, no matter how outlandish.
I have the suspicion that often these rumours originate from the opposition in the diaspora, who I believe are just as biased and self-serving as the officials.
I find this side-effect of censorship quite fascinating.
In fact, China recently cracked down on those spreading rumours. [1]
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/poliitics/article/2162036/ch...
> Of course, I will never claim that this makes me an expert, but an interesting observation that I have made is that educated people in dictatorships seem not to believe anything from their country's media.
Just one example of these two points is Thomas Frank, whose type of message you will rarely see anywhere in the mainstream (or even elsewhere (whether intentional or not): "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks."), and therefore will likely have no influence on "informed" people in the US.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/01/thomas-frank-obama-c...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xPCMhwyHy0
But as you say, the message is getting to some people, and when people hear these types of messages and if they realize it isn't covered in the mainstream, and is "discouraged" on social media, and start putting two and two together, it can become a very potent political tool that can be leveraged by populists.
Effecting change in government policy is a poor metric of personal freedom as there are a number of competing interests, each rooted in their personal freedom to try to effect change. Yes, many of us are disappointed in how things were handled since 2008, but clear policy solutions don't always exist, and I do not think the people clearly coalesced around any set of them and then failed to implement them. Why? Because the actions taken to effect a recovery were good enough that we didn't collectively starve. Revolutions and huge political upheavals take starvation (The Depression), death (Vietnam), or a clear solution to unfair suffering (Civil Rights Movement).
And don't forget that this lack of knowledge about the true state surely contributed to the famines that killed tens of millions of Chinese during the Great Leap Forward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
A Facebook bubble can be similarly truth-distorting, but your bubble is ultimately a reflection of your individual choices, and it barely takes a couple of clicks before you can find conflicting information or alternate opinions.
In the West, for all our defects, you can get all the points of view you want.
That is for example the CNN or NYT looking with microscope whatever Republicans do badly and ignoring what Hillary or Obama does wrong could be extremely valuable is there are "opposite biased media" that looks with microscope whatever Hillary does wrong.
This happens in multiple levels, there are financial interest that own media and will never criticize its masters.
The Churches also own media, the Unions own media, the military and farma industry own media. Google or Facebook ARE media.
People in power should be controlled, and that is one of the most realistic ways to control people in power. Wanting media to be unbiased is a dream. Most people are biased.