Yep, those folks have always been around. There was a weird thing when email became widespread. It turns out that there are (at least were) people who will reject a stupid thing if someone says it to them, but will believe the same stupid thing if they see it written. A giant number of early viral emails were things like “According to the New York Times, gangs are targeting people who wear people shoes.” Of course, the NYT never said that, it was all bullshit, but all sorts of people would swear it was true because papers were reporting it.
And then there were those who had less good critical thinking skills and believed in lots of let’s say interesting things.
Yep, those folks have always been around. There was a weird thing when email became widespread. It turns out that there are (at least were) people who will reject a stupid thing if someone says it to them, but will believe the same stupid thing if they see it written. A giant number of early viral emails were things like “According to the New York Times, gangs are targeting people who wear people shoes.” Of course, the NYT never said that, it was all bullshit, but all sorts of people would swear it was true because papers were reporting it.