Stalin didn't try to protect the populace from misinformation. He tried to stay in power whatever the cost, industrialise the country and make it more powerful ( economically and militarily) and united ( aka destroy ethnic groups). People died due to those things, his stubbornness and refusal to accept reality ( industrialisation impact, Germany), his paranoia ( Great Purges, among other things), and his genocidal tendencies (poles and others) , not because they were murdered for spreading misinformation about the NEP or whatever.
And genocides happened, why prevent another one?
As they say, "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths merely a statistic". Don't fall into this trap.