Because if you spend enough time on the internet, especially the Western side, you start to hear voices of people who oppose their governments and not enough from those who support it.
Even many who are supportive tend to say that their government is authoritarian.
Good comment!
And you joke, Blinky katt but I once sat face to face with someone as they told me that China even admits that it's a dictatorship in its constitution. I sat there agog and incredulous, lost for words. How does someone who has made the effort of reading the Chinese constitution say some thing like that not just with a straight face but with a smirk as if they have uncovered a secret that everyone in the west knows but which nobody in China has noticed?
For reference, the text (http link) reads:
A lot of people in the west are trained to think "dictatorship" and "autocracy" are exactly the same thing. They don't understand that "dictatorship" is just "those who dictate the law."
Who says they had? They could have just heard it from someone
In this case, they definitely had. But there is a real problem of liberals thinking that secondary sources are enough.