[pjc50]

Meta-comment, but this is partly why search and the internet is so bad now; there are a large number of political disinformation campaigns which are getting increasingly blatant, and getting better at finding believers on the internet.

People have a vested interest in destroying the idea that anything can be a non-partisan "fact". Anything can become a smear. Only the most absolutely egregious ones can be reined in by legal action (e.g. Alex Jones libelling the Sandy Hook parents).

(This is not just internet, of course; the British press mendacity towards the Royal family is playing out at the moment.)