I wouldn’t suggest that people think their government is doing a good job because the media doesn’t expose the bad. Rather, the goal of speech suppression is to limit factions forming, organizing, and growing. Public discussion is the fuel for organization. Limiting speech keeps everyone in the same tent or in their own tiny, isolated pockets.
And you are correct. But it doesn’t matter to my original point. For any reason, people trust the Government. Because of this trust, policies like the one discussed in the original post don’t alarm the average Chinese netizen.
Although an interesting side note is that while some people think that saying anything bad at all about the Government will get you arrested in China, that’s not really true. You are free to talk all the smack you want about the Government, in private. It’s when you try to start some kind of political movement or organise something in public that now you will be labelled a threat to public order and state security.
I wouldn’t suggest that people think their government is doing a good job because the media doesn’t expose the bad. Rather, the goal of speech suppression is to limit factions forming, organizing, and growing. Public discussion is the fuel for organization. Limiting speech keeps everyone in the same tent or in their own tiny, isolated pockets.
And you are correct. But it doesn’t matter to my original point. For any reason, people trust the Government. Because of this trust, policies like the one discussed in the original post don’t alarm the average Chinese netizen.
Although an interesting side note is that while some people think that saying anything bad at all about the Government will get you arrested in China, that’s not really true. You are free to talk all the smack you want about the Government, in private. It’s when you try to start some kind of political movement or organise something in public that now you will be labelled a threat to public order and state security.