Absent a drastic change in human nature, we are always going to have people who want to do these sorts of crappy things, in any society. In China, those people have the backing of the government. Here, they're just corporations (not that we don't have crappy government propaganda machines too). Yes, I would absolutely agree that corporations have much more power than they should. But their power is not absolute, by even the wildest stretch of the imagination, and ultimately they're are just another set of people who can -- and do, often enough -- lose when they try to impose their will on others.
That's why it's a false equivalence.
By what metrics exactly?
Most people agree that Google etc results are increasingly useless, and it won't be long before AI content is based on previous AI content and all of the limitations inherent to that. Anything of value will be locked up and metered out based on class.
Given how captured by capital our political systems are in the West, it seems like only a matter of time before things are exponentially worse than our present point in the decline.