Back in the day there wasn’t much value in convincing people on the internet that arbiters of truth were needed because there weren’t enough people on the internet to determine political power contests.

There were enough people watching television back in the day to determine political power contests, and hey would you look at that there were arbiters of truth there back in the day.

> Ffs why do we need arbiters of truth on the internet.

Because otherwise people might believe the wrong lies.

We very much need to give the truth a leg up because there are powerful moneyed interests peddling lies.

Also because the threat is diffuse, so it’s not as easy to sue for (say) slander as it was with newspapers.

> there are powerful moneyed interests peddling lies

When has this not been the case?

> the threat is diffuse, so it’s not as easy to sue for (say) slander as it was with newspapers.

By this, do you mean that anonymity is preventing lawsuits? Regardless, it's never been easy to sue newspapers and win.

> Where are people's critical thinking skills?

When there are nations working on manipulating people, with presumably significant budgets, you can't really fault people for getting fooled occasionally.