Headline goes brrrrrr… I guess?

Because hate for AI is so blind that you can post anything and people will immediately fall for it.

There are so many speech restrictions and humans rights violations in China that scare the hell out of me

I hear an earful about how horrible and repressive the Chinese state government is to its citizens from the outside, largely by national media talking heads and Big Data surveillance company flaks. Meanwhile, the consequences of talking shit on the Chinese internet - account suspension/deactivation, getting in trouble with your employer/school possibly with the threat of firing/expulsion, periodic investigation by state police for threats of violence, possible restrictions on business/travel because you've been added to a "watch list", potential for arrest on some bullshit charge - seem to be all the same kinds of consequences periodically doled out to western citizens.

I'm told Americans have "free speech". But then the Supreme Court lays so many caveats down that even a silly toothless joke is strictly prohibited under US laws. I'm told Chinese officials are brutal and draconian and mean-spirited, but they don't have anything approaching our prison population. I haven't seen evidence of any kind of mob-rule social media gang dedicated to doxing Chinese dissidents, either. So they manage to stay ahead of Canary Mission and Project Veritas in that regard.

I hope one day there is more free speech for people in China who deserve to be able to say what they want.

I want to know what that's supposed to look like in practice. Where can I find the Free Speech that the Evil Foreign Country is supposed to one day get?

Because if the dream is an American style system of free expression... What are we pinning for, really? Chinese Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson? Uyghurs given the Palestine Action treatment? An independent Taiwan that enjoys all the diplomatic kindness we afford to our neighbors down in Haiti and Cuba?

What are we even asking for?

It's almost as if the speech restrictions and human rights violations are grossly exaggerated or entirely misreported by companies that are exclusively funded by the US intelligence community. . .

Don't get me wrong, some still do exist (especially on the company side of things). Since, you know, it's a country consisting of 1/7th of humanity; but equally it's pretty silly to think 1/7th of humanity is too stupid to do anything about a single supposedly hyper repressive government that allegedly doesn't let them speak against it.

It’s crazy that a country with no free speech has tens of thousands of protests every year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_and_dissent_in_China

You mean like how the West mashes people skulls in for holding a banner against genocide?

I bet in China you can talk about the genocide in Gaza without getting beaten, jailed, or deported.

I think in terms of workers rights, China is rapidly coming up to the West in the 50s. There's a massive growth in middle class as well as white collar jobs, especially in tech and engineering.

This has put pressure on society as a whole for much higher standards of living, and thus better wages and better rights. They are no longer the cheap ass labor country, that's being exported to Africa and such.

Although the 996 culture is still insane, but I think that partly comes from the extreme competitive environment in the tech sector. There were similar stories years ago in the video game industry, and that probably hasn't changed much.

This one policy is better in this extremely superficial description.

Neither country has workers rights on par with Europe for example.

I'm not sure about step 4. I mean, China is pretty strict with those kinds of things.

Honey, I used to live there, and I hate to burst your bubble, but there's a huge HUGE difference between what China says and does.