Weird&hateful conspiracy stuff existed back in the Usenet days too.
It did, but it was only accessible to techies and university students until 1993, and until the Eternal September newbies arrived in sufficiently small numbers that they could be acculturated and encouraged to view the kooks' postings with appopriate skepticism.
Right, but, I am not sure how that translates to solutions to the situation we are in now.