How did a man reading the New York Times in the 1920s validate anything he read? Trust? We have always had this problem but recently we have been in a state of being where info was easier to get and confirm. Now technology is returning us to a previous state of uncertainty. They way I handle this is skepticism and prioritizing what I need to know vs. what everyone is talking about. Most AI / Deep fake crap doesn't have an impact on decisions I'm making now. If it did I wouldn't trust it until I could figure out a way to verify it. I have yet to see a deep fake fool people long term. Yet I have seen MANY examples in the last few years of media outlets misquoting people and people repeating it to the point where it is just fact to them. It is trivially easy to check many of these lies but people don't. This isn't new. Media has always lied. Now we can check them but most don't. That is the root issue. I can't solve it for anyone but me. Same goes for you.

The other way I handle this is reputation. Has this person/group lied to me and others in the past. If yes I do not trust them. That doesn't mean all they say is a lie but it means I have to check them. This is why I do not trust any government body to speak truth. They have burned that bridge. I do not trust any news outlet either. They all lie, mislead, and hold back facts to spin a narrative.

The way I would sum it all up is to say we in the west have been naive and we are being forced out it. The handful of people I know that experienced communism do not have this flaw. They aren't naive. Many that I know from the global south are the same. They aren't naive. We apparently have to be burned to learn sadly.