>Imagine everybody being able to criticize the Vietnam War in the sixties, or e.g. segregation in the 40s, or prohibition in the 20s, or the war on drugs in the 80s, or McCarthyism, on a platform that could get equal eyeballs as the Time or TIME LIFE or NYT. All those critiques would be discarded as "fake news", "propaganda" and so on too (in fact whatever little was, e.g. in underground papers and so on, got exactly those labels).

People were able to express those opinions, there were tons of publishers putting out independent papers, pamphlets and books. They didn't have the same reach as something like the New York Times, but I don't think the internet provides an equal amount of eyeballs either. It's easier to access now, but it's also easier to access something like the NYT.

And this same thing has been going on for centuries. Practically the same post was written about the Sans-culottes.