Knowledge production doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Every great scientific breakthrough is built on prior work, and an ongoing exchange with peers in the field. That’s why we need to address the threat of major publishers and platforms having an improper influence on how scientific knowledge is accessed—or outright suppressed. Infrastructure we rely on must be built in the open and on interoperable standards, and hostile to corporate (or governmental) takeovers. Universities and the science community are well situated to lead this fight.
I agree, and they desperately need science communicators. Every department of every university needs people who are qualified scientists who can also speak to the public about what they do.
Decentralization is the protection, but the remedy is education. Having freely available information isn’t enough on its own.