> Are people really finding that out only now? I thought that this was generally accepted knowledge even in China, despite the constant fear and propaganda they live with.

Yes and no. You see, 2 decades ago probably half of my peers had that knowledge, that was when the internet was pretty much uncensored compared to how it is today. Over the years they get converted by the narrative and now it's probably 5% or even less that keeps a critical mind when reading anything from anywhere, which is, your know, all censored.

It takes constant vigilance and a high degree of discernment to see through such a narrative. They know its hard to keep up over long term. That's why the maintenance of alternative news sources is so important before it gets that bad.

This is interesting to hear, because distrust got so deeply embedded in Hungarians in the previous and the current system, that at this point, barely anyone believe anything, and the ones that do follow after the conspiracy lunatics.

That's interesting, what I've read mostly says Orban took over most of the media, especially TV and that's been a big reason for why he won reelection. I'm guessing you're Hungarian, is that true?

I just a couple of days had a conversation with a Chinese friend about this (he is living in Sweden). Essentially he said that previously he thought free-media/free-speech was something he understood, but did not consider terribly important for his own live (i.e. you still live a good live, the Chinese government was lifting the population out of poverty ...), but seeing the media and how they dealt with suppressing covid news (especially news how people with other conditions who did not get treated, that just disappeared from social media) he realised that this could easily affect him as well.

So in summary it was not about that he didn't know that state media was manipulating the news, but more that the crisis showed how this could affect anyone.