Firstly, the topic you were looking for is this: And you expect them to have the guts to make a real balance patch? - #1120 by Spirit-6683
Secondly, just to put it out here, everyone is acting outraged over the Chinese having their “freedom of speech suppressed” and how this is a violation of human rights, but honestly, if you ask the average Chinese citizen, they tend to not even notice this violation because they are pretty apathetic to politics anyway and couldn’t care less if you dangled “the right to expression of free speech” in front of them because they pretty much say whatever they want both online and offline anyway. What most people mean when they say freedom of speech is actually freedom of political speech, but most Chinese, as I said, are apathetic and couldn’t care less about politics.
Thirdly, mainland Chinese are different from Hong Kongers. I notice that a lot of people tend to conflate them, which displays a gross misunderstand of the social dynamics.
Fourthly, the Hong Kong protestors, while important, are not representative of the whole of Hong Kong. There’s a lot of talk regarding independence and “freedom of speech” but actually this discourse is generated by the most vocal of the population, the students, who make up the majority of the protestors. There’s quite a significant amount of the population who don’t want to separate from China (quite like how there are people for and against Brexit in Great Britain). Yes, there are differences in political opinions even within the same country or province. Shocking, I know.
Fifthly, it seems that a lot of people here think that they are speaking on behalf on Hong Kong, or that their opinions represent that of Hong Kong. No, your views merely align with the protestors, and as I said earlier, the protestors don’t actually represent the whole of Hong Kong.
Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t have the right to freedom of speech. It’s just that the people here tend to think they know what’s best for Hong Kong without actually knowing what everyone in Hong Kong wants. You’re only hearing the vocal protestors and equating that to the whole of Hong Kong, but if you actually go onto the ground, most of the Hong Kong population just want the riots to stop and for businesses to go back to normal. And as shocking as it may be, there is quite a significant proportion of the population who actually disagree with the protests and independence.
Too long, didn’t read? I don’t think any of us can claim to speak on the behalf of Hong Kong and know what they truly want. The protestors are part of a diverse collection of political opinions and views (or lack of), some of which may not align with what people tend to think as “normal” or “human rights” in the West. And Hong Kong =/= China.