• ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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    3 years ago

    Sure, but the premise here is that the government should be able to control what people are allowed to discuss using online platforms. I don’t necessarily disagree with the notion of limiting harmful speech, but it’s worth pointing out that this is precisely the kind of thing westerners like to criticize China for doing saying that Chinese government is authoritarian.

    If we accept that it is reasonable for the government to limit free speech when it’s deemed harmful and to ban platforms that don’t comply then we have to admit that China’s approach to controlling online speech was fundamentally correct. It certainly could be argued that it helped avoid the kind of social instability we now see in the west.