Someone signed up to make this pro-CCP comment, which was then flagged within minutes - rather ironic given the context in which it was posted. Although I disagreed with several of the premises and the logic of the comment, I vouched for it as an interesting and valid contribution.
However, the lack of transparency around flags and vouching on HN makes this meaningless, and I have never seen a flagged comment vouched back to visibility. Accordingly, I have reposted it below, although I would like to emphasize again that this is not an endorsement of its claims..
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nglengjai 10 minutes ago [dead] | parent | unvouch | favorite | on: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine
I can comment as I grew up in China my entire life and came to the west just a few years ago, attending international school. People obviously know censorship exists and most believe is for the greater good, as China needs social stability above all. Most people just want to live their lives, have children receive a good education, make money, have safety, etc. There is no need to bad mouth the government after everything they do for the people. So many families are now wealthy, business is booming, people can afford nicer houses, and the economy is doing better than ever. Crime and danger pretty much does not exist, cities are walkable, life is safe. My family and friends families were low-middle class when I was a kid and are now in the upper class by western standards. Also, you have to understand that Chinese culture, especially Han culture, is very united and shares a lot of patriotism. Family values are very strong, cultural morals I think are very homogenous. This makes it very easy for everyone to agree with government decisions. Contrary to the west, we have very high faith the the government is always doing the most efficient and safe decisions for the general public, and people are happy about it because this has been shown to be true with how it has concretely affected hundreds of millions of people's lives. So many people taken out of poverty within a short span of time.
Social media censorship is not a big deal because we don't miss what we don't know. For example, people don't care they can't use google, facebook, instagram, because we have our own social networks. Also, people know not to talk about political subjects in these platforms because it is in bad taste and we know how to self-censor. Also, we Chinese see the chaos and mess from the news coming from the west regarding polarization, fighting between political parties, and social unrest and we don't want that. Contrary to the middle east, I would say most Chinese do not believe they are oppressed at all. They are happy with how the government handles things.
I'd say people are happy with the censorship because they believe it brings stronger national security, social stability, and reinforces shared cultural values most Chinese have with each other. Please keep in mind that we have different social values in the east than the west. Our perception of freedom and values that matter to society are quite different. Although this may seem extreme to you, your views sometimes seem extreme to us. Thank you for your time.