LoRa cannot handle much data at all. At the lowest data rate you're talking 51 bytes taking 400ms to transmit. Its also far better at uplink traffic than downlink, meaning 2 way communication is very, very, very limited.
Yeah. Meshtastic in default (very long range) config has practical limits of ~30 nodes/users on a channel and can only broadcast old-school SMS style messages across the mesh.
It's super fun to play with. But it isn't gonna "save democracy by circumventing nations-state internet shutdowns"
It's super fun to play with. But it isn't gonna "save democracy by circumventing nations-state internet shutdowns"