It's incredibly obnoxious when people type "in my country" as if we're all supposed to just... know where they live. It's also incredibly common. Why do people do this?
The actual country is not relevant, the important part is that countries exist where this is the case. Mentioning the specific country invites potential bias that means people may not take the concern seriously, thinking their country wouldn't do the same.
I usually say that to let people know: I'm not from the US and i'm not comfortable letting people know which country i am living in.
Image asking someone where they’re from only to be told a US state, and only the state.
Asking where somebody's from and having them respond with the state is not unreasonable -- you can already tell they’re American from the accent. The US is huge, about half of its states have more land area than half of the countries in the world. Asking where someone is from and receiving "the US" in response is about as informative as someone from Europe replying "Europe". Like yeah, obviously, I could tell by your accent, but where in Europe?
Funny thing is that americans do that all the time, even in international settings like a coworking space full of expats. Everybody introducing themselves with a "hi, I'm from this country", except americans telling their state or city. Are they expecting us to be familiar with their geography, or just unaware of alternative geographical frames of reference?
I'd think passive recognition of a fair few states would be a pretty low bar for relatively educated, English-speaking people. It's a pretty low bar, just placing a region with its country. People also regularly just assume that level of knowledge for globally- or culturally-relevant cities.
Maybe I think too highly of people, but I'd also imagine most would be able to get say... 6/10 right, for which countries the following list is from:
- Flanders
- Nova Scotia
- Brandenburg
- Guangzhou
- Tasmania
- Minas Gerais
- Catalonia
- Chechnya
- West Bengal
- Bali
> mandate weird Brazilian Android games on the phone I bought in Brazil.
Uhm, this sounds more like something from the Ministry of Culture, maybe some tax incentive for manufacturers promoting local productions.
I could be wrong though. Curious to know if Anatel has issued any ordinance in this regard, just did a quick search but could find nothing so far.
They do marvellous things like mandate weird Brazilian Android games on the phone I bought in Brazil.