I think this is something to understand about modern political information manipulation/restriction.
The 1.0 version totalitarian censorship aimed for full information control. This is what the soviets and pre-1990s CCP tried to do. It's difficult because (as you say) information is hard to control.
The 2.0 version is about enough control. You can use a vpn (or memory stick), but most won't. This gives one version of events a major advantage over the others. Easy-to-find praise for the government, difficult-to-find dissent.It's about dominant influence, not absolute control. When needed, regimes can temporarily increase control, like erdogan did during the last turkish coup attempt.
A soft paralel is social media "bubbles." They don't "control" the information you can access, but they are enough to influence your opinions in a direction. There are lots of exceptions, but on average, these have a big influence on who we think the good and bad guys are.