There was a joke in China that in a primary school, a Chinese mainlander student and a Chinese Taiwanese student are punished for being naughty. The punishment is for them to transcribe the following sentence (in Chinese obviously) for 100 times. The sentence has the meaning of “A melancholic Taiwanese turtle.” The Taiwanese kid cried where the mainlander kid just shrugged his shoulder, guess why? Is it because the Chinese mainlander has higher tolerance toward crude punishment?
In simplified Chinese, “A melancholic Taiwanese turtle” looks like this:
忧郁的台湾乌龟
wherein traditional Chinese it looks like this：
憂鬱的台灣烏龜
So, do you have an answer to your question now? If not, try to transcribe each of them 100 times and I’m sure you will tell the differences.
PS. let’s admit that EVERYONE who recognises simplified Chinese characters recognises traditional Chinese characters effortlessly, and it is pretty much the same the other way around. They look so alike aren’t they (once you get use to the form of Chinese characters).
PSS. It only takes a few days, if not weeks training for modern Chinese to recognise Chinese characters from 2000 years ago, as they look so alike. . .
PSSS. Why do so many people think that everything Chinese is CCP driven? It is the KMT who attempted to promote simplified Chinese first when they were ruling the mainland. China has 4000+ yrs (almost) continuous history with more than 20 major government ruled this land and CCP is just another one, and it can’t be more obvious that it is very different to the CCCP but has inherited shadows from the Da Ming and previous ancient dynasties.