At this point there are enough wifi tethering capable mobile phones all over the world to run a mostly decentralized internet.
Also Lightning network is capable of sending messages, but the infrastructure is just being built. Without micropayments the incentive structures wouldn't be there to build the decentralized internet (which of course means mostly centralized in practice, but increased fees instead of disrupted network in case of government action).
At the same time Lightning Network needs people to adopt Bitcoin, in which the adoption is about 10M people all over the world, which is in the 0.1% order. At about 2x / year growth, it will take about 6-10 years until it gets practical.
LN nodes need to be active all the time or you lose your money, right? I doubt anyone in these types of countries would risk there - either losing their money or keep a detectable node active all the time.
Furthermore, if they're not gifted coins, they'd have to convert from $LOCALCURRENCY to Bitcoin (at the very least for bootstrapping), and I don't see how that conversion could be made secretly given the control these governments have.
Also Lightning network is capable of sending messages, but the infrastructure is just being built. Without micropayments the incentive structures wouldn't be there to build the decentralized internet (which of course means mostly centralized in practice, but increased fees instead of disrupted network in case of government action).
At the same time Lightning Network needs people to adopt Bitcoin, in which the adoption is about 10M people all over the world, which is in the 0.1% order. At about 2x / year growth, it will take about 6-10 years until it gets practical.