Former Guardian executive Emily Bell suggested search giant Google was guilty of “naked dishonesty” for concealing the fact it handed private emails sent between Wikileaks staffers to the FBI.

Bell (pic: LCC), who was Guardian director of digital content until 2010 and is now director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism in the US, delivered the annual Cudlip lecture at the London College of Communications.

She used it to talk about the power about how “super platforms” such as Google, Facebook and Twitter now “are the free press”. And she also said that the web had led to the “tabloidisation” of all journalism.