I think people underestimate the degree to which the general population is susceptible to mass manipulation following the recent death of personal computing.
How recent are we talking? 15 years ago I was working at my college's IT helpdesk. The majority of students that brought in their machines told me they didn't use their computers for anything besides MS Word, AIM, Flash games and DVDs. Of course there were the art students with Adobe troubleshooting issues, or Econ students with STATA questions, but 90% of the time the computer was an entertainment-centric device.
15 years ago Microsoft wasn't dictating moderation rules and content for these.