People in China/Russia/Iran can use proxy services to bypass censorship. Such services are much cheaper than Starlink connections and far easier to set up and maintain.
Starlink satellites route through ground stations which are subject to local controls [0].
Communication between satellites and the earth are governed by international treaties [1]. Every country controls radio spectrum use in their borders [2]. Starlink must obtain spectrum licenses and comply with local laws. If Starlink were to route traffic to ground stations outside of the country to evade local controls, the country would simply revoke their spectrum license. If Starlink decided to operate without a license, the US government would be forced to either stop them or break numerous international treaties.
I doubt that helping people circumvent censorship will have long-term positive impact. Censorship is a symptom of bad government, not a cause. For example, both the United States and Israel both have low censorship. Yet, according to [3, 4, 5 + 6], the United States and Israel would be included in a list of "the worst offenders in terms of censorship and human rights violations". Also, UK and Singapore have strong censorship [7, 8] and perform few human rights violations nowadays.
Starlink satellites route through ground stations which are subject to local controls [0].
Communication between satellites and the earth are governed by international treaties [1]. Every country controls radio spectrum use in their borders [2]. Starlink must obtain spectrum licenses and comply with local laws. If Starlink were to route traffic to ground stations outside of the country to evade local controls, the country would simply revoke their spectrum license. If Starlink decided to operate without a license, the US government would be forced to either stop them or break numerous international treaties.
I doubt that helping people circumvent censorship will have long-term positive impact. Censorship is a symptom of bad government, not a cause. For example, both the United States and Israel both have low censorship. Yet, according to [3, 4, 5 + 6], the United States and Israel would be included in a list of "the worst offenders in terms of censorship and human rights violations". Also, UK and Singapore have strong censorship [7, 8] and perform few human rights violations nowadays.
[0] https://hackaday.com/2020/02/20/how-does-starlink-work-anywa...
[1] https://oxfordre.com/planetaryscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/...
[2] https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/backgrounders/Pages/itu-r...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
[5] https://www.btselem.org/
[6] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/u-s-vetoes-of-un-securi...
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingd...
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Singapore