Censorship is the hallmark of an authoritarian regime"". Do you agree? Give reasons
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Answer:
Media censorship is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. We conduct a field experiment in China to
measure the effects of providing citizens with access to an uncensored Internet. We track subjects’ media consumption, beliefs regarding the media, economic beliefs, political attitudes, and behaviors over 18
months. We find four main results: (i) free access alone does not induce subjects to acquire politically sensitive information; (ii) temporary encouragement leads to a persistent increase in acquisition, indicating
that demand is not permanently low; (iii) acquisition brings broad, substantial, and persistent changes to
knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intended behaviors; and (iv) social transmission of information is statistically significant but small in magnitude. We calibrate a simple model to show that the combination of
low demand for uncensored information and the moderate social transmission means China’s censorship
apparatus may remain robust to a large number of citizens receiving access to an uncensored Internet.
Explanation: