Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough. I don't know how you think that makes this an ambiguous point though. Like you suggested, this is a continuation of the CCP's repressive dystopia which signals its continuing appetite for oppression. But allowing the internet as envisioned by the CCP doesn't lessen oppression because it's not the internet , it's a small, curated subset of the internet augmented with surveillance & propaganda that becomes…
> I don't know how you think that makes this an ambiguous point though. It's not ambiguous as evidence of current behavior, I just don't think it points towards increased control of media as much as it actually points towards less control (even if because it's harder to control without blocking entirely) than in the past. Put another way, I think the total outside information the average Chines citizen is able to get…
And however much we might quibble over whether "small" is the appropriate word, it doesn't change the fact that the size of the internet allowed in China is far, far smaller than could be honestly called a real internet. I call it small because it's an unacceptably small fraction of important available information/communication that is just as effective, if not more, at repressing citizens. You can call it large and be no closer to arguing that this represents less of a repressive dystopia.
Beyond filtering and site blocks, China also does:
Targeted human monitoring: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveill...
International surveillance and censorship: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/18/zoom-he...
Propaganda in search engines and social media: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/28/chinese-tech-firms-fueli...