Well let's say you have a certain agenda as a government, to prioritize a risk/reward ratio over pure freedom, and decides that you can afford to make everyone unhappy but alive by maintaining very strict information control. Say like China does but not just for the party, for the country itself.
You can then prioritize opinions by their reward if correct vs risk of being incorrect. Even if you're incorrect, it's better to be incorrect saying mask are useful, than being incorrect saying mask are useless. The probability of masks worsening the situation is lower (but not null) than the probability of masks improving it.
I don't see the problem with that, it's like saying "veterans fought for our freedom and deserve our respect" instead of "veterans used tax money to oppress foreigners and enforce national policies abroad at the detriment of most people involved, and they did that for money not for the country". There are opinions better not shared by official message to lead the country towards some sort of coherent path no ?
You re unironically calling "evil" a clearly stated, well defined, historically precedented, very human behaviour China put in place for the specific purpose, like it or not, to position the party before the country.
It's not evil, it's maybe short sighted and selfish, or who knows, the only way to transition to something better eventually. But "evil", resist these emotional adjectives, you make Chinese people just handwave any attempt at rational evolution.
You can then prioritize opinions by their reward if correct vs risk of being incorrect. Even if you're incorrect, it's better to be incorrect saying mask are useful, than being incorrect saying mask are useless. The probability of masks worsening the situation is lower (but not null) than the probability of masks improving it.
I don't see the problem with that, it's like saying "veterans fought for our freedom and deserve our respect" instead of "veterans used tax money to oppress foreigners and enforce national policies abroad at the detriment of most people involved, and they did that for money not for the country". There are opinions better not shared by official message to lead the country towards some sort of coherent path no ?