It's a good point - the past was far from perfect. Long before the current "user generated content" fact-level problem, I remember (some) traditional internet f

It's a good point - the past was far from perfect. Long before the current "user generated content" fact-level problem, I remember (some) traditional internet forums offering the same problem as we have today - inane parroting of plausible sounding content, almost as mantras, to anyone who asked a question. I learned from those days that you had to be careful as what you read on a forum was highly likely (at least in some circles where expertise is limited, the topic is complicated, and questions are plentiful) to be plain nonsense, or pseudo science. On the other hand though, the increase in friction arguably reduces the scale of the problem you cite - making it financially based is far from ideal, but it at least reduced the breadth of the problem space to some extent.