> China is strict with people rioting or complaining a little too much about the government, but they don't lock people up for saying general no no words or being too patriotic/nationalistic online.

How absurd is this statement. China jails and disappears people for online statements at a rate several orders of magnitude larger than any western country.

It's borderline ridiculous to even make a comparison. Some quick examples:

1. https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/chinas-system-of-mass-arbitr...

2. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/china/hong-kong-security-arre...

You can get arrested for "picking quarrels" online:

3. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3146188/pic...

Picking quarrels is a crime in the UK too and people get sentenced for it. [1] The only difference is people will say "actually that's good" when the UK does it, but it's for some reason bad when China does the same exact stuff. According to the UK gov, they're arresting 30 people a day for it. [2] That's nearly 8000 people a year for what they say online.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo.amp

[2] https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2025-07-17/debates/F807C...

Actually, there is no limit on facial recognition in China, government uses it, universities use it, even middle schools use it. yes there is a consent form for u to sign and you can refuse to sign it, but then lots of trouble come: e.g. you need facial recognition to enter school, so now since you didnt sign the consent form, you need to spend half an hour or more arguing with the security guard.

And when it comes to online behavior: 1. governments do monitor citizen's words online, like in QQ groups (something like slack / discord). 2. In most circumstances, complaining too much or even curse the country will not be punished, only those who take action in reality will be sent to prison, e.g. organizing demonstrations. 3. But discussing about things like how to build a bomb will lead to a conversation between you and the police. I know these because I have experienced all these kinds of things in China. However, most (at least 80% of my acquaintance) do NOT care about this and support these policies. (To be honest, I personally also do not care about this kind of policy —— as long as the government does not raise taxes, I and most chinese do not care where the tax goes.)