Many Zimbabweans fear their government could abuse citizens’ data to intimidate them. Before an election in 2018 party thugs forced people to hand over their registration slips, telling them these would reveal whom they voted for. The same thugs have in the past burned the homes of those who voted the wrong way.
Given the upvote ratio, some people are privacy enthusiasts until China intervenes.
I see how your point talks about an apparent contradiction: privacy yes, but privacy no. Thanks for pointing that out, because it’s important to have these conversations.
It could be that Lemmy users dislike states that serve the interests of capital rather than that of, for example, the common good. If you believe the US serves the interests of capital and that China serves the interest of the common good, the contradiction I see that you point out (privacy yes; privacy no) gets resolved. Privacy enthusiasm becomes a response to capitalist data-mining.
Please be aware that I am not idealizing the Chinese state. I am explaining a possible reasoning.
That reasoning might work for domestic use inside China (I disagree, but lets not argue about that here), but selling the technology to states like Zimbabwe, which clearly isn’t “communist” or in any other way going to use this tech for the common good is just atrocious. And yes, western states also sell surveillance equipment to dictatorships like Zimbabwe, and that is also atrocious.