The reddit user literally just completely made up the “to circumvent local government restriction” bit (and gets sent to the front page of r/all).
Whenever I see a post like this, I wonder if it was done by an individual or as part of a paid propaganda effort.
Link because I’m not a lib
Archive link in case it gets deleted
The sources literally linked by the OP:
Business Insider
The Guardian
I feel like it’s so engrained in Reddit’s culture it’s hard to say. What percentage of people actually read an article past the headline? How many people think they’re accomplishing something by spouting off the same thing over and over before patting themselves on the back?
Hexbear has a fakenews comm specifically to identify this issue. The whole point is to post a fake story and wait for people to comment on it. The link is usually just like a rickroll or a fake news site like that says like abc.net/lmaogettem or whatever.
I hate it, but it’s fantastic at weeding out people who don’t even follow the link.
Redditors are perfectly willing to be racist for free