There's absolutely a larger issue at work, here. Relative freedoms between nations is a specific point, but the one you're making, I think, touches on a vitally serious global problem.

This is easily referenced through the small number of corporations that own the majority of all global media and news providers. As well as a pervasive consumerist mentality that frequently undermines the fabric of attention, mutual aid, and care that democracy requires to function.

Finding ways to show this to people, and to build bulwarks against it, is one of the most important struggles we face.