[kube-system]

The problem is that people think they've been lied to when they largely haven't. They've missed all of the nuance because they're looking for absolutes. Science is nuanced and politics is crude. None of those topics you list are dichotomic in nature, yet our political discussions nevertheless dilute them as such.

[danillonunes]

I remember in 2020 at the very beginning when people started to panic buy toilet papers, I read something about WHO saying masks should not be recommended to general public to avoid shortage for health professionals. They meant well, but what I saw at the time was a lot of media outlets turning this message into how masks are bad, innefective, and using one in public is the equivalent of wearing a tinfoil hat. This lasted less than a month, but I wonder how much this helped with the "the media is lying to us" sentiment.

[kube-system]

The same exact thing later happened with vaccines. They were tested to be effective at significantly reducing the severity of illness and death. Public discourse diluted this to "vaccines prevent covid", and then when people got breakthrough cases, some started claiming they "don't work because you can get it anyway".