However, the left wing denunciations of censorship and media monopoly definitely ring hollow, especially after COVID policy silenced all dissent as "misinformation."

you aren't wrong about that. I recall those times vividly and also some people, friends of mine, that completely bought into it and wanted people to be punished severely for not towing the line. That revealed a lot about their true selves during all of that and I haven't been able to look at them the same since then.

Hopefully the population at large learned a bit during all of that and can see how there is a "machine" there controlling the entire damn world... and that they are not part of it.