When I moderated a panel recently @emilybell commented that the first time she heard the phrase "mistrust in the media" being pushed in the modern sense was at a Google sponsored event.

Journalism is under attack from all sides and the platforms are not innocent bystanders.

It would make sense that they'd want to propagate this term. It's not that "fake news" is running rampant on their platforms. It's just that people have a "mistrust" of the media.

This is a nice way of suggesting the problem is with the media. Not the platforms.

Even in our internal discourse the platforms are setting the agenda. Not to go all 1984 on you in this thread, but it is true that if you control language you control thoughts.

Part of why this came up is because I asked about the money these platforms throw around at industry events and innovation grants, etc. To the extent there's no free lunch, the question is: What's the other shoe? I think some internalized guilt is the price.