I remember reading a long time ago, maybe in the 80's or 90's, an article about a then-Soviet citizen who had an illness (might have been heart-related, I don't remember anymore) so severe that it required a surgical operation that was too complicated for Soviet doctors, so he was quite exceptionally and unusually allowed to be transported to the United States to be operated.
Both the patient and his close family who traveled with him were very surprised at the drastically different attitude of the American doctors. That's because said doctors constantly kept them up-to-date with everything they were doing, and constantly informed them of what was happening and explained every procedure they were going to perform, and explained to them the nature of the illness in great detail. They were constantly updating them on the patient's condition and upcoming plans and procedures.
They were surprised by this because they had lived their whole lives in a country were doctors, especially the higher-level doctors (specialists, surgeons, etc.) almost always kept them in the dark, almost never explained anything, almost never told them what they were going to do, and almost always refused to even answer any questions.
This was very common in the Soviet Union. In fact, at some point in the 80's HIV spread very quickly there because people were kept in the dark about it, and even were explicitly forbidden to speak about it.
The Chinese government has been heavily criticized recently for their initial response to the current coronavirus epidemic, which started there. At the end of 2019, and early January of 2020, many doctors who had treated COVID-19 (obviously not yet named that back then) patients and done laboratory tests on its cause and reported on it, were forbidden by the local authorities from speaking up, and were ordered to stop "spreading rumors" about this "possible SARS virus". In fact, the authorities even censored social media posts by the family members of these patients. On the 1st of January, eight medical personnel were taken into custody by the Wuhan police, and threatened with prosecution if they kept spreading "false rumors" that the new disease was SARS-like. Even as late as the 14th of January the Wuhan police detained several journalists who were interviewing people at Wuhan's Jinyintan Hospital.
The citizens of Wuhan (and the entire country) were kept in the dark about the infectious disease for something like a month, before the government finally decided to reverse its policy (probably because the number of infected people reached the tens of thousands).
These examples of censorship of things that don't make much sense to censor are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to totalitarian regimes, especially Communist ones.
Censorship, heavy control of information, is a tool of control. The control and censorship of information is widely used by all entities that want to exert strong control and dependency on a group of people, such as religious cults and totalitarian regimes.
When a country has exercised heavy censorship policies for decades, it becomes second nature to almost every person in any position of authority and power. Even doctors in high positions, sometimes (even though there's really no reason why they should keep their patients and their close relatives in the dark about anything regarding them). The instinct to censor, to keep people in the dark, to exert power over people via the control of information, becomes normalized, often due to propaganda campaigns and social engineering. (For example, a totalitarian government might actively promote this via memorandums, orders, guidelines, and internal propaganda campaigns. So much so that to the people exposed to this it becomes a second nature, an instinct, something to do as a matter of course, even in situations where it doesn't make much sense.)
Both the patient and his close family who traveled with him were very surprised at the drastically different attitude of the American doctors. That's because said doctors constantly kept them up-to-date with everything they were doing, and constantly informed them of what was happening and explained every procedure they were going to perform, and explained to them the nature of the illness in great detail. They were constantly updating them on the patient's condition and upcoming plans and procedures.
They were surprised by this because they had lived their whole lives in a country were doctors, especially the higher-level doctors (specialists, surgeons, etc.) almost always kept them in the dark, almost never explained anything, almost never told them what they were going to do, and almost always refused to even answer any questions.
This was very common in the Soviet Union. In fact, at some point in the 80's HIV spread very quickly there because people were kept in the dark about it, and even were explicitly forbidden to speak about it.
The Chinese government has been heavily criticized recently for their initial response to the current coronavirus epidemic, which started there. At the end of 2019, and early January of 2020, many doctors who had treated COVID-19 (obviously not yet named that back then) patients and done laboratory tests on its cause and reported on it, were forbidden by the local authorities from speaking up, and were ordered to stop "spreading rumors" about this "possible SARS virus". In fact, the authorities even censored social media posts by the family members of these patients. On the 1st of January, eight medical personnel were taken into custody by the Wuhan police, and threatened with prosecution if they kept spreading "false rumors" that the new disease was SARS-like. Even as late as the 14th of January the Wuhan police detained several journalists who were interviewing people at Wuhan's Jinyintan Hospital.
The citizens of Wuhan (and the entire country) were kept in the dark about the infectious disease for something like a month, before the government finally decided to reverse its policy (probably because the number of infected people reached the tens of thousands).
These examples of censorship of things that don't make much sense to censor are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to totalitarian regimes, especially Communist ones.
Censorship, heavy control of information, is a tool of control. The control and censorship of information is widely used by all entities that want to exert strong control and dependency on a group of people, such as religious cults and totalitarian regimes.
When a country has exercised heavy censorship policies for decades, it becomes second nature to almost every person in any position of authority and power. Even doctors in high positions, sometimes (even though there's really no reason why they should keep their patients and their close relatives in the dark about anything regarding them). The instinct to censor, to keep people in the dark, to exert power over people via the control of information, becomes normalized, often due to propaganda campaigns and social engineering. (For example, a totalitarian government might actively promote this via memorandums, orders, guidelines, and internal propaganda campaigns. So much so that to the people exposed to this it becomes a second nature, an instinct, something to do as a matter of course, even in situations where it doesn't make much sense.)
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