You couldn't script a better parable of censorship's dangers: China tames the internet, which helps blind it to a dangerous new virus. What many miss is how China got there. Under Xi Jinping the internet police bring real-world muscle to online censorship. nytimes.com/2020/03/16/bus…
Nowadays the risk is real. Write a critical post that goes vaguely viral, and the internet police may arrive with an unexpected knock at the door. They drag you to the station for hours of questioning. Often it all ends in signed confessions and vows of loyalty. 
A similar thing happened to Li Wenliang, the doctor who tried to warn his colleagues about the coronavirus. It's happened to many others. One man mocked Xi Jinping in a chat group and two days later officers dragged him off for hours of questioning. nytimes.com/2020/02/07/wor…
The man, Bole Cheng, was questioned 3 times. The police said they used an AI powered search to find him. They said they were rising in power, taking over national security responsibilities. One officer brought up Orwell, to make the point the police were not like what's in 1984.
This is all a massive shift from the early years of China's internet, when posts simply disappeared and foreign sites were blocked. The added intimidation is hugely effective. Now there's real fear around saying the wrong thing online.
Unsurprisingly, it has its downsides. Many ministries in China use public opinion tracking software. Mining the internet for feedback they don't get otherwise in an authoritarian system. The idea is data not democracy to rule in a more perfect way.
The problem is the more people are afraid to say what they think or silenced before they can say it (think Li Wenliang) the less reliable the internet feedback/data. W/ the coronavirus it blew up in Beijing's face, yet they doubled down. The internet police are working overtime.
Interestingly, there are some who listened to Li Wenliang's warnings when Beijing didn't. Miles Zhang wore goggles and a mask in early January on a trip to Wuhan, after his wife read about doctors being silenced. Miles himself was pulled in by internet police for a VPN last year.
Shaken after the interrogation, Miles contemplates leaving China: “I used to think the censorship was a technical problem that could be overcome.... But this time was like a smack to the head. This is state terrorism.” His wife's illegal reading habits may have saved his life.
