Propaganda is as old as man. Manipulating people has existed for as long as someone has been able to profit from it. Implying that it is suddenly new because on

Propaganda is as old as man. Manipulating people has existed for as long as someone has been able to profit from it. Implying that it is suddenly new because one politician embraced the conspiracy is very harmful to the idea of fighting it. The internet brought a few things into play that have made the issue more complicated. Primarily that information and false information can be made by anyone and spread at the speed of light. Secondarily, that more people can present themselves as experts because all you need is a website and not third party's validation. In only a few years we went from a researcher showing how he could manipulate a video to make it look like someone said something different than the actual transcript to the ability to fabricate entire scenes with deep fakes. Most people in the world don't even know this technology exists. If you think only some back woods Trump supporters will fall for this then you're definitely mistaken.