Counting on Google search and Twitter to be the guardrails for democracy strikes me as laughably naive. This is a multi pronged evil effort, after all.
Dumbing of the populace must be ahead of schedule based on anecdotal reports. It’s enhanced by making valid info (truth) tougher to obtain and handicapping the development of critical thinking when ambiguity is encountered (see school board & college curriculum efforts). Combine that with politicization of all aspects of the public sphere, a purposeful demonization of trusted news sources, a dash of confirmation bias, and you have generations starting not to trust what they read or personally observe. Sure the truth is still out there on the inter webs somewhere. People know how to find it. The issue, I suspect, is that they won’t want to find it, and Republicans are doing all they can to facilitate that ignorance.
Or just fucking re-read 1984.