What are the connections to our world in Brave New World?

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), along with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), is one of the books most cited when it comes to the genre of political dystopia. Comparisons to these two books are often made when political or technological developments in the real world start to either approximate the dystopian systems of the novels or, at least, make these systems plausible.
The difference between these two novels, however, shows the ways in which Brave New World can be seen to reflect more the developments seen in Western countries over the past few decades. Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves To Death, writes:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell's fears could be seen in totalitarian states such as those in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, with their aggressive stance toward what would or would not be allowed in public intellectual life.
But, in the US, the rise of social media and concerns over fake news have more of a Huxleyan flavor: the tools we use to distract ourselves are having unforeseen effects on the ability of our society to know what is true. The development of the opioid epidemic mirrors the voluntary use of the pacifying drug soma. Finally, the sheer amount of information makes it difficult to find the essential facts.