Comment by culi

13 days ago

Have they though? Everybody I know who grew up in China has told me its trivial to bypass restrictions with VPNs

Depending on where you are, “everybody I know who grew up in China” may not be an unbiased sample w.r.t. ideology, forthcomingness, or truth-telling.

The question is what do you win when found using VPN?

  • There is pretty much no risk. It’s expected you will use a VPN, you can talk about it openly in public.

    Now, if you’re doing something unrelated that the administration doesn’t like, you can expect VPN use to be included in the long list of charges.

  • You phone and computer will be checked thoroughly using automated tools. If they didn't find any sensitive keyword, you'll be fined and recorded in the system. If they find something, a detention for at least 3 days or ... forever.

    That's the standard procedure. But polices in developed areas usually treat them like antragsdelikte(no trial without a complaint).

I guess by "Everybody I know who grew up in China" you mean those elites who speaks English and have already bypassed restrictions to talk to you online or travels to other countries. There's some selection bias here.