I watched those 2 channels some time ago too. I think they’ve become more and more CCP-critical over time though. I remember their videos almost 10 years ago being quite uncritical. They definitely couldn’t put their current content out if they still lived in China.

I think the crux of it is though that they were Youtubers, their critical views were for outsiders/foreigners, not for the average Chinese douyin/youkou user and as such were less relevant for 公安. Chinese people couldn’t watch those if they weren’t using a VPN.

In the same vein, if you were making death threats against the current administration you’ll likely get in trouble if you do it on Facebook or TruthSocial. But it would most likely fly completely under the radar if you did it in Mandarin and posted it on TikTok/Douyin. Censors can’t censor what flies over their head.

(As a German living here) I doubt it. It’s bad but it’s still not China-level bad - and even in China they don’t arrest literally everyone. If you’re a foreign national living in the US however, you should be a bit more careful.

AI Data Miners really are a plague of our times…