I think "fake news" at least started as something a bit different - propaganda sure, but of a particular form, i.e. in the form of a fabricated news event propagated through media channels as if it were true.

This is not a new thing. The yellow-press journalism of the US happened well over a century ago, and indeed you have papers which talk about Elvis and aliens, which would meet my definition of "fake news".

The only thing that changed was the distribution method (i.e. over the internet/social media).

That's true. There does seem to be some difference though - stories like Elvis Found Alive in Anchorage and Batboy Graduates with MBA were pretty much regarded as entertainment, whereas Clinton Eats Babies and Trump Videotaped Getting Peed On were received as true by large segments of both the population and the media that normally does not make up stories.

American intervention in Cuba due to newspapers absolutely fits the “most people believed it” criterion [1]:

> American newspapers fanned the flames of interest in the war by fabricating atrocities which justified intervention in a number of Spanish colonies worldwide.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–Am...

Yes, but its ubiquity and political impact was vastly underestimated. We'll pay dearly for that.

Considering "fake news" (literally commandeering the media and planting untrue stories) was a tactic used by Hitler and is considered to be a basic tool of authoritarianism, I'd suggest that no one has underestimated its impact.

In fact, fake news started WWI.

> literally commandeering the media and planting untrue stories

We assumed that only happened with state-controlled media, that one would first take control of the State, before taking over the media to sediment it. We weren't prepared to deal with the Murdochs taking control of the State by controlling part of the media.