I am (mid-forties) and started using Photoshop around version 2. People definitely worried about the integrity of photographic evidence.
I think what's different now is the combination of much more powerful cheaper tools (those fake GAN generated faces are likely taken from one of the sites making them for free) vs Photoshop at the time was thousands of inflation-adjusted dollars.
This is coupled with a much more efficient peer to peer and unvalidated news system (which there's much to like), but consider Dan Rather. He was forced out of CBS Evening News and producers were fired for having been fooled by (not producing) digitally forged memos for a story critical of George W. Bush. [1]
Contrast that to whatever group is putting up fake stories and accounts of Facebook, there are no repercussions.
What is even crazier about the Dan Rather story is that the story about how George W. Bush avoided Vietnam due to political manipulation and bribes was actually TRUE.
Before it was ever reported in the USA it was reported in the UK by The Guardian among others. Dan Rather's team started their investigation with sources in hand which already constituted very strong evidence.
Given that the story was true and Dan Rather's team was starting with solid evidence of it, Bush's team was at a disadvantage in discrediting the story. Their solution was to slip a clearly faked smoking gun that was so good that Rather would have to lead with it. After Rather lead with it, Bush's team was able to discredit Rather and get him fired. The result was that the story became toxic and nobody in the USA was willing to report the story.
The result is rather amazing. By faking evidence for what really did happen, Bush's team was able to make everyone believe that it didn't happen! And was able to keep the story out of the US media!
I read it in one of Greg Palast's books. He reported on the story for the BBC, and knew what evidence Rather's team started with because he was one of the people who supplied it to them. You can also still find reporting on the story online from The Guardian if you look for it.
And lest you think that this kind of dirty and underhanded trick would have been off limits, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_Vets_and_POWs_for_Truth for a more widely known story of the underhanded tricks used by Bush supporters in that particular election.
I pointed you at an author who is a reporter for the BBC. I am not sure which of his books it is in, but that shouldn't be too hard to find out. (My guess is Armed Madhouse.) He lays out the interviews and documents that were sufficient for the BBC to report the story as fact. This is all verifiable.
According to you, this is "just innuendo". And therefore you have dismissed it out of hand.
The BBC is not in the habit of publishing as fact what is "just innuendo".
Part of the problem may have been the story didn't really resonate with the American public. In theory I guess I'm meant to hate cowards and hypocrites, but learning that Bush the Younger once feared war is almost humanizing.
I think what's different now is the combination of much more powerful cheaper tools (those fake GAN generated faces are likely taken from one of the sites making them for free) vs Photoshop at the time was thousands of inflation-adjusted dollars.
This is coupled with a much more efficient peer to peer and unvalidated news system (which there's much to like), but consider Dan Rather. He was forced out of CBS Evening News and producers were fired for having been fooled by (not producing) digitally forged memos for a story critical of George W. Bush. [1]
Contrast that to whatever group is putting up fake stories and accounts of Facebook, there are no repercussions.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#Killian_documents