Now you are moving the discussion into Which country have actual free people though. Sure a dictatorship is worse than a "free" country where decades of propaganda has set the tone so people think they are free while they do what the government wants them to but are they really that much better off? That people chant USA! USA! USA! while doing something doesn't mean they are free. They are more free but way more indoctrinated. I'm not sure that is better than how it is in Russia. It does feel better, sure, but it doesn't give any less media bias at all. If anything US media is more biased than Russian or at least as bad - all done without obvious threats. That's worse in my opinion, way worse.
> Now you are moving the discussion into Which country have actual free people though.
I'm not moving the topic, that is an integral part of the existing discussion: Apple and Google employees were threatened with imprisonment if they didn't remove the app.
> but are they really that much better off?
Now who's moving the discussion away from topic? It certainly isn't me lol
I'll entertain your question though: some will be better off, some will be worse off, and some will not be affected at all. When you deal with any large dataset, such as the entire population of a country, there will always be individual samples which demonstrate the benefits of most outcomes.
HOWEVER I do not believe the instances of those who are better off under a dictatorship equal out the atrocities that dictators use to retain their control. And that is the real crux of the problem.
> That people chant USA! USA! USA! while doing something doesn't mean they are free.
I'm not American and don't have a particularly high opinion of American politics either but it's still better than a dictatorship.
I also suspect you're now drifting into a philosophical argument about what it means to be "free".
> It does feel better, sure, but it doesn't give any less media bias at all.
Finally you're back on topic! As I stated in my previous post, every country will have bias in the media. That's unavoidable. However what is important is that the media have freedom to choose their political biases. In "free" countries you'd typically get new outlets which will favour the current government but also outlets that will be highly critical of the government. And that is the difference between Russia and most of the rest of the world. It might seem like a really small point if you're used to Russian (or any other state-controlled) media but I promise you that it really is a significant difference!
> If anything US media is more biased than Russian or at least as bad
No, it really is not. You have platforms that can offer opposing arguments and full press freedom to use them. America even has rules stating that one should have the freedom to speak out against the government (and this was upheld in court when Trump tried to block people he didn't like on Twitter). Compare that with most dictatorships where vocal opponents often end up exiled (or worse!) and you'll see my point that you cannot argue the two to be equivalent.
