I think they could. Didn't England try to impose printing press licenses, so you legally couldn't own a printer without government blessing? Lincoln (the tyrant) jailed the owner of a newspaper and sentenced him to death (extrajudicially, although a judge freed him after the war). Surely people saw that one day telegraph messages would be cheaper, faster and accessible to everyone. The FCC was created to restrict radio bandwidth via licensing.

I think people have always known increased communication was dangerous to authority and control.