Albany, NY 📍

Prior to 1969, things like this were common in America, before we had fancy safety standards from UL. Most old AM clock radios from 1950s had their frames grounded to neutral, which was safe at least 50% percent of the time to touch, as long as you didn't insert the non-polarized plug in backwards or have the neutral and hot reversed, and then touch something metal in the radio.  Kids back in the day were educated not to touch metal things when an radio or television was plugged into the wall. And children who didn't learn that lesson, generally aren't around to complain about it.

Neutrals can sometimes "float" with a voltage that is different from the ground too if there is any resistance between the neutral and the grounding rod. That's why it's not recommended for children to stick forks into the wider slot of the outlet, even if it's likely all they'll get a tingle if the house is wired correctly. And that's why metal frames and other components are grounded over a separate wire connected to the same grounding rod as nuetral, since 1969, to avoid any floating voltage on the neutral and the possibility that neutral and hot are reversed on the polarized plug.

And capacitive droppers like in this flashlight are dangerous as hell, and produce shitty power factors into the power grid, making the power plant burn more coal to produce the same amount of energy. Capacitive droppers don't limit voltage, they limit amperage, so your charging a low-voltage circuit by essentially chopping off the high-voltage part of the sine wave -- and sending the waste power back to the grid with the voltage and amperage sine waves out of sync. Because your not limiting voltage, it can easily break down the resistance of human skin, and pass enough current to stop a human hearth.