Agreed, although there exists the problem where it's a lot easier to produce bullshit than refute it. Perhaps it's just a reality we must contend with.
But sufficiently authoritarian regimes usually also heavily censor, so you still end up censorship even in that case.
I'd love to hear an alternative that is actually known to work for societies that are both large and have near zero costs to produce and widely spread information.
This goes both ways