I don't think its new for democracies to control free speech, they just have far,far better tools to do so today. Lincoln didn't have the Internet, but he did suppress opposition by suspending habeas corpus and clapping a supreme court justice in irons. Robespierre, the man of the people for part of the French Revolution, which supposedly valued liberty and fraternity, decapitated numerous political enemies until finally he himself became the enemy.

I could go on, but humans have been bending and breaking democratic egalitarian rules for centuries. Modern technology is just so pervasive, Putin and Trump can affect the information at everyone's fingertips always with social media and online information.

Indeed, any powerful entity can buy anything online: clicks, bots, comments, views, accounts, literally anything they want to say can reach millions of people. This would be ameliorated by ethical and moral information platforms, which we seem to not use and not build for profit reasons.