Is the year really 2012?

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall toward the earth’s center. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

1984, Part 1, Chapter 7, p. 81

In 1984, the government controls the people of Oceania. Not just what they do, but how they think, what they say, how they feel, and what they see. The presence of such control may not be as publicly present in the United States (although it certainly does occur in some ways), other countries face actions such as the ones in the book on an every day basis. North Korea controls everything that their people hear and see, and deprive them from "real" news. In an article investigated by Benjamin Insail, he explores the depth to which censorship is taken. 

Not only does the North Korean government censor what the people hear and see, but they also make it quite dangerous for those who try to expose the truth. One would think that this would act as a deterrent, however Insail writes that "more and more foreign journalists are actively seeking information about the regime." 

While Orwell wrote and satirized about a government in which the people have no control, not many people expected for the world of Oceania to become a living reality in the modern days of 2012. It would seem that people are more knowledgeable of their oppression, and are aware that their rights are alienated, but choose not to act on it. It seems that those who are acting on it are those who aren't facing the oppression firsthand.

Why is it that as soon as rights are taken away, and made secretive, everyone wants to expose the truth? Is this just human nature or is it simple curiosity that stems from lack of spontaneity in life?