We are living in unprecedented times, engaged in a fierce battle over the control of information as the precursor to political power. The internet, tech companies and President Donald Trump delivered us to this historic place, as did the aspirations for democratic government overseas and the authoritarian reactions against those instincts and movements. We will examine the two parallel movements that define this era: disinformation as it spread from Russia in 2000 westward to the United States and state censorship as it exploded across the globe in reaction to the powerful, but short-lived 2012 Arab Spring. Can these instruments of authoritarianism be stopped?