We tend to think that the state of technology is the main driving force enabling this to happen, but if you look at history it is far from the truth. For good or bad, the tolerant and complacent condition of modern life means that all those previous efforts by governments or ruling classes were unsuccessful and deemed to failure. Every time a system of oppression that restrained universal rights reached a critical point it eventually met with a greater force that eradicated it -- ironically many times spawned and fed by the very same apparatus devised for control that backfired.

Naively thinking this time it will be different is not understanding human nature.