I don't think there is a change in skills to handle this. I think that what happened is that now information travels so quickly while the variety of information sources people consume has decreased.
Before people had time to think about news and talk to people with different views and get push back. That additional friction slowed the spread of misinformation and guaranteed it would mix with the information. When given both, a sufficient portion of the population was able to determine which was which. Then these people could moderate the discussion with targeted persuasive arguments. Sure, a lot of people still believed the misinformation, but they were less confident about it.
Now the information and misinformation travel separate channels. By the time they meet odds are the people involved are already emotionally invested in one or the other.
Before people had time to think about news and talk to people with different views and get push back. That additional friction slowed the spread of misinformation and guaranteed it would mix with the information. When given both, a sufficient portion of the population was able to determine which was which. Then these people could moderate the discussion with targeted persuasive arguments. Sure, a lot of people still believed the misinformation, but they were less confident about it.
Now the information and misinformation travel separate channels. By the time they meet odds are the people involved are already emotionally invested in one or the other.