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What I'm arguing is not whether freedom of speech in China has changed. What I'm arguing is that Chinese people, by and large, value different kinds of freedoms, assigning different priorities. It's like telling an average social media user about the erosion of the freedom to self-host and the erosion of Free Software values. The average user cares about very different things.

The data from decades of research is very clear on this. People like your girlfriend and her social circle, who value freedom of speech the most, are a minority in China. A decreasing minority even. By and large, people are happy with the direction of China. Even if various groups may disagree with specific parts of policy, overall satisfaction is quite high. Freedom of speech is considered a nice to have, not a must, and ranks below many other things such as freedom from poverty, freedom to get quality education, freedom from disease, freedom from anarchy, freedom of security, etc.