https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_controversies
This is a much-underestimated factor that didn't exist, on that scale, previously.
When I was hanging out in chat groups in the late 90's I didn't have to worry about my conversational partner having, financially motivated and sinister, motives to change my opinions about certain topics.
Except for straight up scams, but nobody had a vested financial interest in "convincing" me about something.
These days there's a whole industry built around exactly that (social media marketing), the web is full of dishonest information players, even on a governmental level, on literally all sides. This isn't even that new, it's a development that the US military caught on years ago [0].
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...