We would do well to remember, however, that even when infrastructure came under the control of independent governments in post colonial times, it did not necessarily represent gains for the average citizen. As Miriyam Aouragh and Paula Chakravartty40 remind us, calls by former colonies for the democratization of global media systems often went hand in hand with efforts by those same governments to silence dissent at home. In most cases, the censorship and antidemocratic regulation undertaken by authoritarian regimes was backed by the United States and other Western powers; commitment by the West to “freedom of information” consistently took second place to the support of oppressive regimes that pushed the West’s agenda of modernization.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 315