I think the largest difference is just the volume of readily available information to support just about any point you want to make. The power of authoritative

I think the largest difference is just the volume of readily available information to support just about any point you want to make. The power of authoritative sources has eroded greatly as the increased access to information means you can argue about any point you wish and odds are there will be something online that supports your point of view - the reliability of said source of course will vary greatly, but that is irrelevant. Information access has improved and is now easier for people - this is wonderful. But this also comes with the fact that now we have far more information to process and more sources to keep discussions and arguments going far longer than they used to be. This isn't necessarily bad, but it also means that people are going to naturally be able to get more stubborn in the face of contrary evidence. News also has the ability to propagate far differently than it used to, and it has a much larger social stigma attached to it. Shares, likes, retweets, these are subtle but important influencers that news of the past didn't really have, and it's a lot easier to get someone to believe something if 20,000 other people seem to think it's kosher, especially if 20+ of those people are your close friends. I get what you're saying at it's core - this stuff has always existed, but our exposure to it, our ability to affirm our own beliefs and biases, and social pressure have basically shot up the fake news with meth and steroids to create a new type of monster to deal with. A piece of fake news only takes a few minutes to reach potentially millions of readers, while a properly researched response or answer takes much longer. When you have people used to responses and articles on a timeline of days or weeks, it's a bit easier to get that sort of properly researched response out. When people are used to a response in seconds or minutes, by the time you have a proper response ready, people have already moved on to the next scandal and have committed the previous news to memory as fact. it's the same material, but it's processed far differently than it used to be.