I often think of the 20th century as a dark age in terms of people's access to information. The fact that we saw the greatest horrors of history committed by governments is not a surprise against that backdrop.
Access to information is an increasing trend. The printing press forced kings to give way to presidents, and play greater lip service to the people (access to guns might have helped a little with that;) ) but ultimately it wasn't enough, because printing presses are expensive things, and the average Joe can't necessarily get one to spread his ideas. The internet changed all that, because the 'zines and pamphlets were suddenly replaced by twitter and blogs. Now everyone can put their ideas out there, and market forces have taken over. Bad ideas wither, good ones spread like wildfire.
Access to information is a 2 steps forward 1 step back thing imo. It definitely increased with the printing press, but then as governments began to institute public education, and radio and TV became in vogue the access to information by the regular citizen seemed to drop. I only need to look at my parents and extended family to see this. TV drones struggle to do any thinking at all.
Now we have the internet, and we have seen govts try to censor it, particularly here in Australia where they tried to follow the Chinese model. I wonder what the future holds. If there is some as yet unthought of way that access to information will be stunted again, the 1 step backwards essentially.
