That is an apt analogy even if most people aren't going to be able to process and discuss it earnestly. You can extend the analogy even further with China's approach to social engineering, they actively pursue the censorship of content they deem socially harmful (such as pornography) as much as they pursue the censorship of dissident political content.

It's interesting to see an authoritarian government use tools normally associated with poltical oppression to enforce social mores. Whether you believe those social mores are positive or not doesn't really matter to the part I find interesting and that is the questions and moral quandaries posed by the use of such powerful tools to ostensibly change society for the better. That is a subject that has gone completely ignored and undiscussed in the Western world. That's concerning because we're watching a live demo occur in the world's most populous nation but no one is talking about it.