It's been this way before, it just ebbs and flows with each new technology wave as we collectively learn how to deal with misinformation.

For example, when radio was being first pioneered, there were people like John Brinkley who would use it to sell quack goat testicle treatments for erectile dysfunction. He became so popular that he ran for office and eventually moved to the Mexican border to avoid the government shutting down his radio towers.

The internet is kind of like early radio, or other means of communication today. Yes, it's more scalable, but we're still socially figuring out how to trust it, one harmful misinformation campaign at a time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley

That would be the Anti-Mask League of San Francisco - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Mask_League_of_San_Franci...

Mrs. E.C. Harrington was the leading name to be looked at. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5q91q53r

Oh, they were there. And during the black plague years too (the rat lickers). The difference is they didn't have a social media megaphone to induce a large number of susceptible people with their seductive tunes. "Listen to us and you can continue to live like you always did". It's a variation on that theme with the man not being able to understand a thing if his salary depends on it.

They were in government at the time: https://www.history.com/news/1918-pandemic-spanish-flu-censo...