The WWW has never been a high-trust place. Some smaller communities, sure, but anyone has always been able to write basically what they want on the internet, true or false, as long as it is not illegal in the country hosting it, which is close to nothing in the US.

The difference is that there historically weren't much to be gained by annoying or misleading people on the internet, so trolling is mainly motivated by personal satisfaction. Two things changed since then: (1) most people now use the internet as the primary information source, and (2) the cost of creating bullshit has fallen precipitously.