Zero possibility that this friend lied?

Some people love to lie especially if it gets a rise out of people. “Defectors” including the likes of Yeonmi Park from the DPRK also are financially incentivised to lie. I know people that lie about shit in the UK to make things sound worse than it is, and they will swear up and down it’s true after being called out on it.

If you’re willing to give the us government even a shred of forgiveness despite constantly proving they’re completely undemocratic, you should look into how Chinese governance actually works and see why the CPC has such high approval ratings from the population.

Me when my government bans a historically popular app: those Chinese ain’t democratic like us!