Have You Heard?

I felt torn reading Joseph Bernstein’s essay [“Bad News,” Report, September]. Bernstein is correct to note that the anti-disinformation industry is largely composed of elites alarmed by the erosion of their power. As marginalized groups have embraced social media as a way to bypass these old gatekeepers, disinformation panic has been expressed most loudly by those who feel anxious about being marginalized in turn.

Bernstein is also right to question assumptions made about social media’s ability to sell certain products and ideas. But his article minimizes media’s influence on society: look at the increases…