And sorry, people are not "gullible" for disbelieving the media. I have worked at most big tech companies and the media misreports so badly on easily verifiable things in my area of expertise, that I no longer trust them on much. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_a...
Most major Western news media are sourcing at least some China stories from WeChat and Sina Weibo before it gets scrubbed by censors.