| But people in China can't really cross check things with sources that aren't controlled by their government. I've been in China for the entire duration of the Hong Kong protests, and unfortunately I often have to watch CCTV news at night. They didn't even cover the protests for something like two weeks. They waited until they had some negative things to cover and their talking points all sorted out, then started hammering away about how violent the protestors were and how they were all that way because of foreign influence. It was truly absurd. The Overton [1] window in China and amongst Chinese people is therefore very far from the truth. Combine that with social pressure, and poor reporting by Western sources, even overseas Chinese people have trouble understanding other opinions on the matter. I don't agree about your different form of censorship idea. It's completely different to have the majority of people disagree with or ignore your opinion than to have top-down censorship of different ideas. I can easily find Chinese opinions on social media and educate myself about your beliefs. Not so easy in China. To me it just shows weakness - if the government of China can't trust their people to make up their own mind, what does that say about their arguments? I haven't tried to bring up the Hong Kong protests with many friends here in China, just because I'm afraid of losing their friendships. How must it feel for Chinese people who have sympathy for them? As far as the NBA, some friends have actually broached the topic with me. They tend to be upper-middle class, educated types, and while they might disagree with what that one guy said (and apologized for), they aren't angry at the NBA, and they feel the government response is ridiculous and counter-productive. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window |