If you control the information, you control the politicians, and the public. From The Zman at thezman.com:
Ten years ago, if you asked people if the government was involved in manipulating public opinion or leaning on social media companies or spying on presidential candidates, very few people would have agreed. Those who did think this was the case were branded conspiracy theorists. Today, most people just seem to accept that this is now the way things are done in our democracy.
It is hard to know if this is really the case, but the lack of public outrage over the stream of revelations about government pressure on social media companies suggests people are not surprised by it. Maybe most people are still processing it, as no one was raised to think they lived in a police state. Possibly the lack of mainstream coverage lets the public ignore what they would prefer not to face.
When you look back at the last time the public learned they were secretly being manipulated and spied upon by the secret police, the reaction of today feels like capitulation in comparison to how people reacted fifty years ago. Back then, both parties and the media were outraged at the abuses, even though many in both parties and the media were parties to the corruption.
