Clearly academic education doesn’t mean common sense. Like I say, that misinformation was available in other countries, but people weren’t doing it. Maybe it’s a US issue rather than a misinformation issue?

Why does it have to be a binary? It’s possible to have freedom of speech and a well run nation. In fact, of China are doing as well as you all seem to think, they have nothing to worry about with criticism or mockery since they can point at their record to disprove it.

Literally only a year since public outcry over Boris Johnsons behaviour saw him ousted as PM, then Liz Truss after him.

Leaders doing a good job don’t feat parody as they can point at their record to disprove it, if China is a brilliant as you say, why can’t they do similar?

I don’t think freedom of speech and good public services need to be a binary. Many Scandinavian countries manage to have both.

In terms of misinformation, the answer isn’t to ban speech, it’s to have a better educated population who can recognise and not get fooled so easily. For what it’s worth, we had people spreading Covid misinformation in the UK, I didn’t lose one family or friend to it, so maybe the issue isn’t the information itself?

You don’t think not being able to mock and joke about your countries leadership is an issue?

How is a meme “misrepresenting the government” is someone going to look at the picture and think “yes, that’s clearly literal, China is run by a anthropomorphic teddy bear from literature”.

It’s annoying that the chaos post 2016 has kind of let Cameroon and Osborne walk away from government without the criticism they deserved as far worse have come since. The amount of things that are going to keep popping up that should have been fixed but we’re put on the back burner due to the “austerity” programme won’t end here and it’s legacy will be as bad as Thatcherism in the long run.

You guys and the MAGA types seem to have very similar views on the Russia/Ukraine situation at the moment.

The Imperial Core was clearly on Coruscant.

You’re not liberals, liberals are centerists, you guys are far, far to the left. Which is fine, but let’s not confuse political terms.