Of course they did. PRC is country that skews old and conservative. Half the reason behind media crack down are cantankerous parents and grand parents telling governments they don't want loose western morals spoiling impressionable minds. Outside of western reporting, PRC libtards are relatively extinct compared to vast amount numbers of papa / grandpa wang who don't want to accidentally watch tits n ass or have uncomfortable imported culture war talks with their live-in kids. The only aggregious censorship that lowkey half of the population wants to get rid of is pornography but that's an Asian thing (also guess which half). There are many of policies easily explained by CCP having to appease the people where feasible because their legitimacy depends on it, unlike "democratic" systems where competing parties bunts the responsiblity to the next guy. Or that fractous multi-cultural societies make cultural wars different political party has idpol positions staked very difficult to win. In China, CCP gets pulse on mass culture and enforces it. Yes they can also manufacture identity for political ends but for something like imported mass media, much simpler/easier/pragmatic to embrace opinion of a billion conservative prudes.
Implying formal enfranchisement is required to choose when being loud in numbers petitioning/screaming at officials is enough and frequently more effective when said officials gets drown in shit if they fail to maintain political serenity. There's a reason Chinese trust in government is near record levels compared to declining trust in western systems which sure are good at choosing but miserable at delivering. Being performative is orthogonal to being performant. "They can't choose" is such a tired and useless gotcha when plurality of "choosers" / voters in prominenant democracies don't actually think voting is useful mechanism for choosing, until compared to highly performant authoritarian systems. Then it is, because reasons.