I see it like politics ( at least the way it's managed in the UK ) - democracy means everyone get's to vote, leaflet door to door, politically organise etc. However there are ( in the non-online space ) strict regulations about money not being able to buy a larger voice - political spending is(was) strictly limited. You can't use broadcast media for political ads, apart from the government allocated slots.....
The regulations haven't kept up with the digital world - but they need to. Looking at what unfettered money has done to US politics is all the incentive you need.
One of the core problems is astroturfing is so easy online - money pretending to be people - in the end, I think the only solution is the loss of anonymity online - anonymity enables sock puppetry and astroturfing.
ie if we want to keep people's freedoms online to say what they want ( but within the law ), but at the same time stop money drowning out all voices, then you have to know what's automated and what's real - and people need to be held accountable for what they say or do - that's how the real world works.
You don't need authoritarian laws regulating content - social peer pressure is quite effective - after all democracy is the tyranny of the majority.