The honest answer is 'it depends’. The university was built around educating, closely tied to a positive impact on society, but treating it as an institution meant to exert as much influence as possible leads into murky waters. Influence should be a by-product of excellent research and teaching and of rigorous, fair engagement in public debate. The real risk in outreach is failing to draw a line between popularization and education on the one hand and promoting one’s personal beliefs on the other; pushing supposedly superior narratives that aren’t built on scientific rigor erodes credibility and makes universities more manipulative than informative, more political than educational. The primary obligation is to give society good information and robust tools to make its own good decisions.