I agree with your sentiment but the major flaw in your analogy is that while drunk driving is unethical and immoral, “piracy” is ethical and moral. Part of the problem is the automatic framing of “piracy” as though it is doing something bad and underhanded. Nah, it’s simply using the information infrastructure in a way that circumvents a small piece of the ruling class’ ability to siphon wealth from you.

Why would America (US, rather) ever want to restrict their citizen’s access to one of their primary propaganda drivers? If you’re in America, it’s already necessary to avoid youtube directly and access it via frontends like invidious if you want even slightly decent privacy and to try to avoid being sucked into youtube’s personally tailored algorithm. Though you may at some point need a VPN in order to access those (the frontends) if they aren’t already outlawed. I can definitely see the US banning youtube alternatives like peertube instances, further restricting any kind of oppositional content on youtube itself, and enforcing strict identity requirements to access things on the internet, but they aren’t ever going to make it difficult to access their state-approved slop troughs.

The Chinese system is very democratic. It is demonstrably far more democratic than western “liberal democracies,” especially the ones that still cling to feudalist vestiges like “royalty” which is blatantly anathema even to the claimed values of liberal supposed-democracy. The Chinese people are overwhelmingly supportive of both their government (their elected leaders) and overwhelmingly supportive of their system which requires the elected officials in high office to have demonstrated their competency as a leader at each lower level first, needing to earn their leadership from the bottom up… rather than merely having to kiss the king’s ass/ring/hand/clown shoe or whatever to get appointed. The only thing that might be “politically sensitive” about all that is how much it might reinforce the Chinese people’s correct view that their system is superior to the frankly cringe joke of a system that the UK has, where both the government and the system are hated (and with good reason) by the people ruled over by that government and trapped within that system.

@LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net, you comment about a clown government and who inevitably shows up in the comments to defend it? Clown shoe bootlickers. Clownshoelickers?