Speed, scale, accessibility, and the ability to target susceptible people without geographic proximity make it a novel problem. A person handling out pamphlets

Speed, scale, accessibility, and the ability to target susceptible people without geographic proximity make it a novel problem. A person handling out pamphlets (asserting something like "Liberal politicians run a pedophilia ring, look for the Pizza code!") can communicate with on the order of 10^1 people per day, and can persuade on the order of 10^1 people per year. The medium is sketchy, the messenger can't be abstracted from the message, one would have to be physically near the messenger, and the messenger would have to be actively trying to communicate with you when you came into proximity. A person posting links to a (fake news) site (asserting something like "Liberal politicians run a pedophilia ring, look for the Pizza code!") via FB can reach on the order of 10^6 people in a day or two. And FB promotes that content to the people who are more susceptible. Ideas couldn't spread like this ever before.