Australia is a strange place, it seems like the people are so relaxed, but the government and people in authority are uptight. Every travelling Aussie I've met in my life was a really non-judgemental, relaxed person but most of the censorship I read about seems not well-thought out, or its coming from people who have never played a game before and don't really get the Player -> Player Character connection, like how its completely different across varying genres.
They think acting in a game is always roleplay when I don't think most people treat games like that. The player shouting at the player character and calling them an idiot is common with streamer so that makes me think those people treat the PC as an avatar of themselves, but not actually them. I think there are moments of players declaring themselves to actually be the character after moments of great victory, but its unclear if they mean "I did that" or "I made that happen", as in controlling the character externally.
Maybe if you inhabit the same PC long enough you might get attached in that way naturally due to muscle memory taking over almost fully.