I'll agree with you that I'm far more worried about the how than the why, exponentially more worried.

I'm just not sure if "this time it's different". There was abundant decisive political smearing and conspiracy theories on Geocities. They had an entire section called Area51 (https://geocities.restorativland.org/Area51). There was a politics neighborhood that had a bunch of crass political bashing (it's pretty funny to read about someone off his rocker about Janet Reno). There was also the Art Bell show playing in every radio market with him interviewing vampire experts and whatnot. The old Internet/culture really wasn't all that different than it is today.