When I was in high school we got to write an essay (or something like that, I don't remember anymore) on some topic I didn't have any opinions about, so I gave an empty sheet of paper with only my name on it. The teacher was really puzzled, an brought up this to me and my mom. She wondered why I didn't cheat and copy something from the internet like a lot of my classmates did actually. We already had smartphones, it was around 2012-2013. I didn't cheat because my parents taught me honesty, that was my answer to my teacher.
Guess what? I got the lowest possible grade (essentially I failed this exam). People who cheated, and she knew they cheated got higher grades. Not that I'm complaining, I got the grade I deserved in my opinion. I would like to note that I wasn't a lazy student or anything, it was this one time that I slipped up, and preferred to be honest about it.
What school taught me is that cheating will get you further than honesty. If you can't make it, fake it. This translated very well when I started working in a corporate environment.

Would Chinese TikTok allow anti-CCP content? I genuinely asking. If it does then yes, we can say it's more democratic. If you mean that the "Chinese" TikTok allows anti-ICE and anti-MAGA/Trump content then this is just a foreign country that has nothing to loose from this, which is not necessarily "democratic", it's just that they probably have something to gain from it.