> It absolutely destroys criticisms of China banning Facebook, etc.
You mean around 10-20% of the open internet? [1][2] That is what you graciously summarize as "Facebook, etc."?
No, it does not destroy criticisms of that. China is #172 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index [3]. It was #179 two years ago. Just because the US "bans" [sic!] one app (that, by the way, is also blocked in China [4]), that does not make them equal.
To give you an idea of how bad it is: I went through the Pudong Airport two years ago. I had to scan my passport and my face to connect to the WiFi. After I did, I couldn't call my mother, because literally every communication channel I could think of was blocked. I couldn't even connect to a VPN. I might as well have been on a mountain in the middle of nothing.
You mean around 10-20% of the open internet? [1][2] That is what you graciously summarize as "Facebook, etc."?
No, it does not destroy criticisms of that. China is #172 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index [3]. It was #179 two years ago. Just because the US "bans" [sic!] one app (that, by the way, is also blocked in China [4]), that does not make them equal.
To give you an idea of how bad it is: I went through the Pudong Airport two years ago. I had to scan my passport and my face to connect to the WiFi. After I did, I couldn't call my mother, because literally every communication channel I could think of was blocked. I couldn't even connect to a VPN. I might as well have been on a mountain in the middle of nothing.
[1] https://en.greatfire.org/analyzer
[2] https://cyber.harvard.edu/filtering/china/
[3] https://rsf.org/en/index
[4] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-douyin-byteda...