You're right. We're so much better off when a significant segment of the population believes that the Secretary of State is pimping out children from a pizza restaurant.

Yes, because the idea of rich, influential men pimping out children in modern America is simply unthinkable and certainly hasn't happened recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein

The conspiracy theory stuff is seemingly always exactly wrong about this. Not only does it magnify unsubstantiated allegations, it often helps suppress the genuine ones; look at how badly the Weinstein accusers have been treated.

The Secretary in question is a woman. Don’t just assume all secretaries are men, that’s sexist.

This is a well-known issue, but what is your solution? Ban internet and go back to the 90s? It's pointless to gripe about this without a good alternative.

Correct. That has has fewer downsides than truth being decided for the public.