On Monday, we witnessed the first of three US presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Now that I’ve mentioned Clinton and Trump, I’m sure a portion of you have stopped reading and are busy attacking me in the comment section below. I’m just kidding. You’ve already started doing that before even reading this article. To those of you who’ve stayed:
After watching the debates, there was one clear winner... Democracy! That’s right. This has been a crazy election cycle that has seen the United States more deeply divided than ever before. And it’s still better than what many people in the world have.
In America we have a system where anyone can be president. Of course, that means anyone can be president. Still, people with radically different ideas can debate them freely on national television, without censorship (or even moderation.) You know where you can’t do that? China!
You know how the “president” of China gets “elected?” First, they have an internal power struggle at the top levels of the Communist Party. Whoever survives the purges rises to the top. And then that group selects among themselves who the leader of the Communist Party should be. Then the Communist Party tells China’s rubber-stamp congress who to vote for, and surprise surprise, that person gets “elected” president. Then it gets announced to the public.
So what an embarrassing contrast for the Chinese Communist Party to have US presidential candidates debating so freely! But fear not! They have a solution: Don’t let Chinese people watch it. Yes, the America’s presidential debate was censored in China. China Digital Times uncovered this leaked censorship directive that pulled the plug on the debate, saying no news service is allowed to livestream it.
