When did I ever claim to be an authority on anything? I'm making the observation that citizens who know they're being surveilled online are unlikely to respond to this type of poll negatively, affecting the accuracy of the results.

I threw an interesting personal anecdote in there as an example but at no time did I make an authority claim. So I don't know what your point is.

He/she is trying to point out your hasty assumption that Chinese people share the same societal and cultural values as you. In reality they may not care much about surveillance and censorship at all.

When did I ever say that the Chinese cared about censorship or surveillance? I know you think you're culturally enlightened by bringing up this tired argument. You're not.

Anyone who's been to China knows that the average person in China doesn't particularly care about privacy, we're not arguing that here. What I'm saying is that regardless of whether someone cars about it, it does affect their behavior.

Whether someone likes surveillance is one question. Whether it discourages them from expressing certain opinions is another.