This has to do with scale, and skin-in-the-game. You share things with people you trust. On a small scale, you're just a tightly knit group or community. On a l

This has to do with scale, and skin-in-the-game. You share things with people you trust. On a small scale, you're just a tightly knit group or community. On a large scale, you're a cog in a cyberpunk machine. In a small community, people know each other. They also know who's spreading a given rumor. People tend to have great instincts, so if the person spreading the rumor is notoriously unreliable, they'll already have acquired that reputation, and the rumor won't have sway. And people can spread rumors, but rumors can spread about them, too, so they behave. None of that is true in cybermundo. Journalists spread lies about you? Millions who'd never even heard of you before now believe them, and your life is ruined. You can't have high-trust societies on a high scale.