Comment by illuminati1911 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by illuminati1911 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I've lived in China for few years.

I haven't asked everyone I know, but based on my feeling most people don't like it. That being said, for most Chinese not liking the censorship is kind of like not liking a bad weather. You don't like it, but you accept it and move on.

Also based on my experience, most white collars (or at least ones working for international companies) in China have either direct or indirect access to the uncensored internet. Companies are allowed to purchase access to VPNs (legal, government approved) to bypass the censorship. This is so that they can access Google, YouTube, banned social media etc. to help them to do international business. Lot of companies integrate these VPNs directly into their corporate wifis meaning that all employees in the company network can bypass the censorship.

Despite having the unblocked access, I've noticed that only very few Chinese are interested in reading foreign news sources or using foreign social media/video platforms.

> Despite having the unblocked access, I've noticed that only very few Chinese are interested in reading foreign news sources or using foreign social media/video platforms.

To be fair, I assume language is also a barrier.

I'm sure not going out of my way to learn Chinese to access Chinese language information sources. I would hardly expect the inverse.

But many Chinese speak English because they deal with international trade. So this doesn't really work the same both ways.

A significant number of Chinese can understand English if not speak it. 1% of China is still 20% of the UK.

It is the same pattern in most autocracies I've been to. As long as people are getting food, jobs, education and some form of the erstwhile American dream, nobody complains anywhere, or outwardly supports it. People don't care much for the big international news in any of those places, but rather the local tabloidy content. An article about a local food market taking place will get far more hits than an international piece on a COVID vaccine. Government workings are barely reported, unless it's for some "glorious" achievement. This is the model in China, Singapore, UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Of course, for dictatorships that don't manage to achieve the dream for their citizens, you'll see a lot of cursing, name calling politicians, and even outright revolutions. People are essentially politically charged and actively involved with spreading news. This is seen in places such as Egypt and Venezuela, where the governments are only surviving because of being propped up by external agents, usually from the former type of autocracies. This mentality is also seen in quite a few flawed democracies.

And then there are the third type of autocracies, where people are simply desensitized to any news whatsoever. Places such as pseudo-democratic Afghanistan or autocratic Syria. People there only care about wanting to move away from that hell hole.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com