I don't have a specific answer to this as I'm not a trained historian. However, didn't we see this with the invention of the printing press back 500+ years ago? That also dramatically increased knowledge distribution and probably lies and mistruths. How did society handle that?
I've thought about this a lot too and I think about a few things:
- The barrier to creating and distributing content was higher (it still had to capture people's attention).
- We didn't have all the tools to artificially create content, just our imaginations.
I'm no doomer by any means, and I think it's useful to look back at history for clues as to how to manage it but it's hard to find clues when the situation is so different.
I still believe education and critical thinking are the best antidote for disinformation, but higher education in the US has continued to come under attack (and perhaps rightfully so with the costs rising extremely out of proportion to inflation).
> The barrier to creating and distributing content was higher.
The printing press lowered the barrier to distributing ideas. The internet lowered the barrier further.
In each case, there is a period of social turmoil as society "catches up". The Peasants' War, Müntzer, the Münster Rebellion, Matthys, Hoffman, and on and on are all events and products of the change in availability of printed word.
We developed social technologies to counter the faults exploited by increased information availability. "Don't believe everything you read," is a meme which acts against the bias exploited by highly available text. The invention of journals, newspapers, and citations all act in the same way.
We haven't developed enough new social technologies to counter the change in information availability. Our existing techniques aren't enough to hold tide and frankly, like all change, going back is never an option, but finding new ways to exist are.
A key difference was the lack of democracy. There was plenty of misinformation, but it didn't channel quite so directly to the levers of power.
That wasn't necessarily better. We put democracy in place for a reason. But there has been a shift in the societal basis that underlies democracy, and we'll be forced to come up with another set of solutions.
It's weird how people can recognize early versions of manmade things are usually primitive and need numerous iterations to get working at acceptable levels of optimality but when it comes to democracy there's some sort of a magical force hiding it from sight in this regard.
The scarcity of printing presses and costs associated in running them by definition made distribution a calculated financial endeavor. Cultivating a positive reputation would therefore be a valuable asset in order to reliably recoup costs via sales and/or retain patrons.
This form of gatekeeping has been eliminated with the zero cost of any person being able to publish their thoughts digitally and without review. Furthermore, misinformation and disinformation now has a financial incentive by way of "driving the clicks."
In short, not everyone's voice needs to be heard by all, especially when extremism is required in order to "stand out."
