Fake News

In this paper, I offer a conceptual analysis of fake news. In essence, I suggest analysing this notion as a species of Frankfurtian bullshit. This construal, I argue, allows us to distinguish it from similar phenomena like bad or biased journalism and satire. First, I introduce four test cases. The first three are, intuitively, not cases of fake news, while the fourth one is. A correct conceptual analysis should, hence, exclude the first three while including the fourth. Next, I go (...) through some factors that could explain the difference between the first three cases and the fourth one before I offer my explanation. After that, I propose an analysis of fake news and show that it matches our intuitions about the four test cases. Finally, I consider a possible objection to my proposal. (shrink)

This chapter introduces a novel account of fake news and explains how it differs from other definitions on the market. The account locates the fakeness of an alleged news report in two main aspects related to its production, namely that its creators do not think to have sufficient evidence in favor of what they divulge and they fail to display the appropriate attitude towards the truth of the information they share. A key feature of our analysis is that it does (...) not require that fake news must be circulated with the intention to deceive one’s audience. In this way, our account overcomes a potential limitation of the current philosophical discussion about fake news, which appears to individuate the main problem with this phenomenon in the fact that fake news consumers are misled and misinformed. In contrast, the proposed analysis shows that an additional (and perhaps equally fundamental) problem uncovered by the spread of fake news is a widespread pathological relationship with information, one on which we consume information not to satisfy our interest in the truth but to strengthen our social identities and quench our hunger for social recognition. (shrink)

This paper focuses on extant approaches to counteract the consumption of fake news online. Proponents of structural approaches suggest that our proneness to consuming fake news could only be reduced by reshaping the architecture of online environments. Proponents of educational approaches suggest that fake news consumers should be empowered to improve their epistemic agency. In this paper, we address a question that is relevant to this debate: namely, whether fake news consumers commit mistakes for which they can be criticized and (...) that they could easily avoid by reforming their doxastic conduct. Proponents of structural approaches, like R. Rini and B. Millar, have defended in different ways a negative answer to this question. In this paper, we criticize their views and suggest that individual users could improve on their epistemic practice by widening their information diet. (shrink)

The topic of fake news has received increased attention from philosophers since the term became a favorite of politicians (Habgood-Coote 2016; Dentith 2016). Notably missing from the conversation, however, is a discussion of fake news and conspiracy theory media as a market. This paper will take as its starting point the account of noxious markets put forward by Debra Satz (2010), and will argue that there is a pro tanto moral reason to restrict the market for fake news. Specifically, we (...) begin with Satz’s argument that restricting a market may be required when i) that market inhibits citizens from being able to stand in an equal relationship with one another, and ii) this problem cannot be solved without such direct restrictions. Our own argument then proceeds in three parts: first, we argue that the market for fake news fits Satz’s description of a noxious market; second, we argue against explanations of the proliferation of fake news that are couched in terms of “epistemic vice”, and likewise argue against prescribing critical thinking education as a solution to the problem; finally, we conclude that, in the absence of other solutions to mitigate the noxious effects of the fake news market, we have a pro tanto moral reason to impose restrictions on this market. At the end of the paper, we consider one proposal to regulate the fake news market, which involves making social media outlets potentially liable in civil court for damages caused by the fake news hosted on their websites. (shrink)

Fake news can originate from an ordinary person carelessly posting what turns out to be false information or from the intentional actions of fake news factory workers, but broadly speaking it can also originate from scientific fraud. In the latter case, the article can be retracted upon discovery of the fraud. A case study shows, however, that such fake science can be visible in Google even after the article was retracted, in fact more visible than the retraction notice. We hypothesize (...) that the reason for this lies in the popularity-based logic governing Google, in particular its foundational PageRank algorithm, in conjunction with a psychological law which we refer to as the “law of retraction”: a retraction notice is typically taken to be less interesting and therefore less popular with internet users than the original content retracted. We conduct an empirical study drawing on records of articles retracted due to fraud in the Retraction Watch public database. The study tests the extent to which such retracted scientific articles are still highly ranked in Google –and more so than information about the retraction. We find, among other things, that both Google Search and Google Scholar more often than not ranked a link to the original article higher than a link indicating that the article has been retracted. Surprisingly, Google Scholar did not perform better in this regard than Google Search.We also found cases in which Google did not track the retraction of an article on the first result page at all. We conclude that both Google Search and Google Scholar run the risk of disseminating fake science through their ranking algorithms. (shrink)

Our current understanding of ‘fake news’ is not in good shape. On the one hand, this category seems to be urgently needed for an adequate understanding of the epistemology in the age of the internet. On the other hand, the term has an unstable ordinary meaning and the prevalent accounts which all relate fake news to epistemically bad attitudes of the producer lack theoretical unity, sufficient extensional adequacy, and epistemic fruitfulness. I will therefore suggest an alternative account of fake news (...) that is meant as an explication rather than a traditional conceptual analysis of the term and that understands fake news solely from the consumer’s perspective. I will argue that this new account has the required theoretical unity, that it is epistemically highly fruitful, and that it is still very close to the ordinary usage. I conclude with addressing some of the main objections to this view. (shrink)

Fake news detection involves predicting the likelihood that a particular news article is intentionally deceptive. Arabic FND started to receive more attention in the last decade, and many detection approaches demonstrated some ability to detect fake news on multiple datasets. However, most existing approaches do not consider recent advances in natural language processing, i.e., the use of neural networks and transformers. This paper presents a comprehensive comparative study of neural network and transformer-based language models used for Arabic FND. We examine (...) the use of neural networks and transformer-based language models for Arabic FND and show their performance compared to each other. We also conduct an extensive analysis of the possible reasons for the difference in performance results obtained by different approaches. The results demonstrate that transformer-based models outperform the neural network-based solutions, which led to an increase in the F1 score from 0.83 to 0.95, and it boosted the accuracy by 16% compared to the best in neural network-based solutions. Finally, we highlight the main gaps in Arabic FND research and suggest future research directions. (shrink)

Michael Goldhaber, who popularized the term the attention economy, said of the US Capitol insurrection: “It felt like an expression of a world in which everyone is desperately seeking their own audience and fracturing reality in the process. I only see that accelerating.” If we don’t do something about this, American democracy may not survive. For when there is no longer any common ground of evidence and reason, history shows that misinformation will eventually overwhelm public discourse and authoritarianism can take (...) over. That is precisely what dictators across the world gleefully anticipate will happen in the US. The Biden administration could combat this by establishing a digital fairness doctrine for the twenty-first century. This would not mean setting up a government agency as the arbiter of truth. The purpose of such a doctrine is simply to preserve the possibility of a functioning national discourse on critical issues of public interest. It would not run afoul of First Amendment free speech guarantees, given that it would do nothing to block speech itself. In fact, it would expand and enrich national conversations, by preventing echo chambers prone to systematic bias. (shrink)

This paper shows why defining „fake news“ is worthwhile and what a suitable definition of “fake news” might look like. We begin by introducing our definition of “fake news” (§2) and employ it to set fake news apart from related phenomena that are often conflated with it (§3). We then extract seven potential dimensions of the concept of fake news from the literature (§4) and compare the most representative definitions that have been proposed so far along those dimensions (§5). In (...) particular, we discuss the definitions by Rini, Gelfert, Dentith, Mukerji, and Zimmermann & Kohring, show up their merits and debits and put them in relation to ours. Although we take our definition as the starting point and argue for it on the side-lines, our primary aims are (i) to enable a systematic evaluation of prevalent definitions with respect to their extensional scope, practical utility, and conceptual transparency, (ii) to demonstrate that there is more widespread agreement than one would think on the outset, and (iii) to show (in §6) that defining “fake news” is not only far from futile, but of vital importance to confront the epistemic threats posed by fake news. (shrink)

This paper analyses the communicative and epistemic value of retweeting (and more generally of reposting content on social media). Against a naïve view, it argues that retweets are not acts of endorsement, motivating this diagnosis with linguistic data. Retweeting is instead modelled as a peculiar form of quotation, in which the reported content is indicated rather than reproduced. A relevance-theoretic account of the communicative import of retweeting is then developed, to spell out the complex mechanisms by which retweets achieve their (...) communicative goals. The last section outlines the epistemic threats posed by the increasing prevalence of retweeting on social media, linking them to the low reputational, cognitive and practical costs linked to this emerging form of communication. (shrink)

A mendacious conspiracy theorist posts a staged interview with a bogus researcher on YouTube claiming COVID-19 was intentionally released to sell vaccines. Some people believe this immediately and post to others, who believe the story immediately and pass it on. It goes viral. Posting such a fake report is unethical, of course. But is it stupid and irrational that people believed the fake report? How can we minimise the spread of false or misleading information? Is it by entrusting to a (...) supervisory ministry or organisation the task of adjudicating on what content in the public sphere is true and educating people to willfully refrain from believing the first thing they hear? Currently, such a task is attempted by Facebook, Google and Twitter by ostracising people from social media platforms that have for most people become their community. But is there a possibility that this could be genuinely systematic? (shrink)

The claim that we live in a post-truth era has led to a significant body of work across different disciplines exploring the phenomenon. Many have sought to investigate the role of fake news in bringing about the post-truth era. While this work is important, the narrow focus on this issue runs the risk of giving the impression that it is mainly new forms of media that are to blame for the post-truth phenomenon. In this paper, we call attention to the (...) ways in which journalistic practices in traditional forms of media also play an important role in contributing to a post-truth environment. We will do so by focusing on one particular practice common in news journalism. False balance involves presenting two sides of a debate as more equal than is justified by the evidence. We will argue that although false balance does not constitute fake news, it does contribute to an environment in which truth is devalued. By obscuring what counts as evidence and who qualifies as an authority, false balance legitimizes post-truth attitudes. We finish by outlining the virtues that journalists should develop in order to guard against false balance. While fake news is made more likely when journalists possess the vices of dishonesty, prejudice or corruption, we argue that focusing too much on guarding against these vices may actually make false balance more likely. In order to be responsible gatekeepers and to avoid false balance, journalists must also develop the virtues of wisdom, vigilance, courage, care and justice. (shrink)

The advent of the World Wide Web and the rapid adoption of social media platforms paved the way for information dissemination that has never been witnessed in the human history before. With the current usage of social media platforms, consumers are creating and sharing more information than ever before, some of which are misleading with no relevance to reality. Automated classification of a text article as misinformation or disinformation is a challenging task. Even an expert in a particular domain has (...) to explore multiple aspects before giving a verdict on the truthfulness of an article. In this work, we propose to use machine learning ensemble approach for automated classification of news articles. Our study explores different textual properties that can be used to distinguish fake contents from real. By using those properties, we train a combination of different machine learning algorithms using various ensemble methods and evaluate their performance on 4 real world datasets. Experimental evaluation confirms the superior performance of our proposed ensemble learner approach in comparison to individual learners. (shrink)

“Spraying chlorine or alcohol on skin kills viruses in the body!” “Hand dryers kill coronavirus.” “Coronavirus kills everyone.”[i] These are just some examples of misleading content that are being spread during the COVID-19 pandemic. With fear around the virus building as the number of cases grows, people are taking advantage of the internet for research. Many posts are drowning out the scientific facts and evidence that others depend on for essential health information, such as prevention methods or symptoms of the (...) disease. Major social media companies have stated that they are working toward limiting the spread of false and deceiving misinformation like fake news because social media platforms are the medium predominantly responsible.[ii] However, this strategy of allowing the corporations to bear the responsibility for taking down misleading content is having limited success. Given that social networking companies can only do so much, the U.S. should consider imposing more stringent regulations and consequences relating to fake news and false information, especially during times of an epidemic or disaster. Health claims should not be restricted unless they would cause imminent harm or have been thoroughly researched and disproven. This article’s firm stance refers to dangerous claims and claims proven to be false. The number of COVID-19 cases has been increasing at a wild pace, especially in the United States.[iii] Unfortunately, the amount of fake news relating to the disease has also been spreading like wildfire. Disconnect between scientific consensus and members of the public is increasingly on the rise in the divided political climate of today.[iv] A study using trending Twitter hashtags found that 24.8 percent of Twitter posts included fake/false information and 17.4 percent included unverifiable information, demonstrating a significant amount of content found on social media platforms is unreliable.[v] Unfortunately, fake news or misinformation on social media is allowed to propagate without constraints, does not entail any curation or peer review, and does not require any professional verifications.[vi] The lack of oversight and government action makes the spread and amplification of misinformation by the “information silos and echo chambers of personally tailored content on social media ideal” for those posting it, particularly during times of public tension like the current COVID-19 epidemic.[vii] As a result, people are starting to follow “unfounded recommendations to prevent infection by taking in excessive amounts of Vitamin C and avoiding spicy foods.”[viii] While suggestions of taking Vitamin C and avoiding spicy foods are relatively harmless and not worthy of censor, some unfounded suggestions, such as snorting cocaine to battle the effects of the virus, are harmful. A prime example of the potential negative impact of misinformation on social media involves mixing sodium chlorite solution with citric acid, generating chlorine dioxide solution. The instructions then state for this powerful bleaching agent to be consumed, promising antimicrobial, antiviral, and antibacterial actions. The US Food and Drug Administration has previously served severe warnings that chlorine dioxide causes severe vomiting, life-threatening low blood pressure, and acute liver failure.[ix] The world's largest social media platforms are said to have been pulling out all the stops to “combat the wave of false reports, hacking attempts, and outright lies about COVID-19.”[x] In an effort to combat fraudulent and harmful content on their platforms, companies signed a joint statement which states that they will “elevate authoritative content on our platforms, as well as share critical updates in coordination with global government health agencies.”[xi] As a result, Facebook and Twitter stated that they will work to ban content about coronavirus that can cause harm. Google is imposing similar actions stating that the company formed a response team that would work to remove misinformation and promote accurate information from health agencies. However, there are doubts as to whether companies are able to handle the so-called “infodemic.”[xii] According to Newsguard, a site that ranks websites by trustworthiness, "health care hoax sites" received more than 142 times as much social-media engagement in the past 90 days as the websites for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization combined.[xiii] In other words, posts from the WHO and the CDC were considerably eclipsed by hoax and conspiracy theory sites: several hundred thousand engagements versus over 52 million.[xiv] Of course, the degree to which the truth is eclipsed might be overstated because people can get access to information from the CDC and WHO through other websites such as online newspapers, university websites, or even good-willed social media posts. However, people visiting the websites that are not trustworthy likely follow links to more of the same and are not in the habit of verifying with legitimate sources putting them at risk. The abundance of online platforms that make use of information from the CDC and WHO to slightly tweak the information can lead people to false content as well. The sheer amount of information makes it impossible to track down all such content, especially since some are in private social media groups which are much harder to track. Simply put, spreading more factual information and taking down other content is not enough to prevent the extant “infodemic.” Currently, other nations such as South Korea are imposing strict guidelines relating to fake news being spread about COVID-19. In South Korea, the cyber unit of a national police agency is “stamping out” false information and is stating those spreading fake news relating to COVID-19 will be prosecuted.[xv] The Korean National Police Agency stated that it planned to conduct investigations including arrests. The prosecutor’s office also stated that it would respond.[xvi] Singapore and Germany have been taking part in investigations relating to fake news and misinformation. Germany passed a law in October 2017 that requires social media to remove fake news promptly.[xvii] Part of the US public health sphere is at a high risk of being misinformed and harmed as a result fake news and misinformation. When we discuss imposing restrictions on any type of information including misleading information, we consider whether our first amendment rights -- freedom of speech and freedom of the press -- are violated. A recent study on fake news under the First Amendment states that “permitting the government to tell society what is and is not true is treacherous, for it vests officials temporarily in charge of the country with the power to twist narratives to serve their own purposes. That is disturbingly akin to the function of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Its purpose was to dictate and protect the government's version of reality.”[xviii] In other words, the First Amendment exists to allow free exchange of opinions and facts whether the government verifies them or not. It also permits the people to have a say about the government and its officials. Government stepping in to force social media to pull content must be narrowly construed to pull only those claims that are dangerous or proven false. One may argue people just need to be more responsible and more cautious about the information they collect from the internet. However, it is important to note that fake news and/or misinformation, especially during times of an epidemic, can cause people with clouded judgment to engage in actions that put them at a great risk. These examples include panic buying that can prevent other people who are in dire need of supplies from retrieving them or a dangerous intake of bleach that can result in poisoning.[xix] As seen by the misleading content on social media, it is simply not enough, and seemingly impossible, to just take down the content. There must be a threat of consequences that will discourage people from posting potentially harmful content. Otherwise, there will be a continuous production leading to an increase in fake news, and even wiggle room for politicians to politicize a pandemic. False harmful publications are actionable if they were made with “knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth.”[xx] With the increasing presence of COVID-19, we as a community must take every precaution and step necessary to prevent further damage. A good starting point is to prevent fake news and other misleading content that can inflict harm on individuals’ and the general public’s well-being. The current methods set forth by Google and Facebook are strictly limited, leaving room for malicious internet users to spread fake information. Imagine, for example, the spread of news such as the government giving the ‘OK’ for people to go out in the public. The news would put the public at risk of getting infected, further spreading the disease, and slowing down efforts to contain the pandemic. The US, which currently lacks a specific legal action to prevent the spread of deceiving and potentially dangerous information through social media, needs to take a more rigorous role in protecting its citizens during serious public health disasters. Heraclitus once said, “justice will overtake fabricators of lies.” There seems no better time than now for justice to protect the American public. April 2, 2020 [i] Tim Newman, “Coronavirus myths explored,” Medical News Today, March 23, 2020, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/coronavirus-myths-explored. [ii] Sabrina Tavernise, “As Fake News Spreads Lies, More Readers Shrug at the Truth,” The New York Times, December 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/us/fake-news-partisan-republican-democrat.html. [iii] Nicole Chavez, Holly Yan, Madeline Holcombe, “US has more known cases of coronavirus than any other country,” CNN Health, March 27, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-thousand-deaths-thursday/index.html. [iv] Areeb Mian, Shujhat Khan, “The Spread of Misinformation,” BMC Medicine 18, no. 89, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-020-01556-3. [v] Ramez Kouzy et. al., “Coronavirus Goes Viral: Quantifying the COVID-19 Misinformation Epidemic on Twitter,” Cureus 12, no. 3, https://www.cureus.com/articles/28976-coronavirus-goes-viral-quantifying-the-covid-19-misinformation -epidemic-on-twitter. [vi] Ramez Kouzy et. al., “Coronavirus Goes Viral: Quantifying the COVID-19 Misinformation Epidemic on Twitter,” Cureus 12, no. 3, https://www.cureus.com/articles/28976-coronavirus-goes-viral-quantifying-the-covid-19-misinformation -epidemic-on-twitter. [vii] Ramez Kouzy, et. al., “Coronavirus Goes Viral: Quantifying the COVID-19 Misinformation Epidemic on Twitter,” Cureus 12, no. 3, https://www.cureus.com/articles/28976-coronavirus-goes-viral-quantifying-the-covid-19-misinformation -epidemic-on-twitter. [viii] Robert H. Shmerling, “Be careful where you get your news about coronavirus,” Harvard Health Publishing, February 1, 2020, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/be-careful-where-you-get-your-news-about-coronavirus-20200201188 01. [ix] Areeb Mian, Shujhat Khan, “The Spread of Misinformation,” BMC Medicine 18, no. 89, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-020-01556-3. [x] Tyler Sonnemaker, “Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, and Twitter just said they’re working together to fight coronavirus misinformation,” Business Insider, March 16, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-youtube-microsoft-reddit-twitter-fight-coronavirus-c ovid19-misinformation-2020-3. [xi] Tyler Sonnemaker, “Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, and Twitter just said they’re working together to fight coronavirus misinformation,” Business Insider, March 16, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-youtube-microsoft-reddit-twitter-fight-coronavirus-c ovid19-misinformation-2020-3. [xii] Tyler Sonnemaker, “Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, and Twitter just said they’re working together to fight coronavirus misinformation,” Business Insider, March 16, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-youtube-microsoft-reddit-twitter-fight-coronavirus-c ovid19-misinformation-2020-3. [xiii] Areeb Mian, Shujhat Khan, “The Spread of Misinformation,” BMC Medicine 18, no. 89, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-020-01556-3. [xiv] Areeb Mian, Shujhat Khan, “The Spread of Misinformation,” BMC Medicine 18, no. 89, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-020-01556-3. [xv] Justin McCurry, “South Korea cracks down on fake news about spread of coronavirus,” The Guardian, January 29, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/30/south-korea-cracks-down-on-fake-news-about-spread-of-c oronavirus. [xvi] Ji-Young Lee, “Severe Lung Damage even after Treatment of Coronavirus?,” Jungang Ilbo, February 27, 2020, https://news.joins.com/article/23717147. [xvii] Ahran Park, Kyu Ho Youm, “Fake News from a Legal Perspective: The United States and South Korea Compared,” Southwestern Journal of International Law 25, : 100-119, https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/sjlta25&div=8&id=&page=. [xviii] Clay Calvert et. al., “Fake News and the First Amendment: Reconciling a Disconnect Between Theory and Doctrine,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 86, no. 1, https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/uclr/vol86/iss1/3. [xix] John P. A. Ioannidis, “Coronavirus disease 2019: the harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measure,” European Journal of Clinical Investigation https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13222. [xx] N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-80. (shrink)

The world is swimming in misinformation. Conflicting messages bombard us every day with news on everything from politics and world events to investments and alternative health. The daily paper, nightly news, websites, and social media each compete for our attention and each often insist on a different version of the facts. Inevitably, we have questions: Who is telling the truth? How would we know? How did we get here? What can we do? Beyond Fake News answers these and other queries. (...) It offers a technological and market-based explanation for how our informational environment became so polluted. It shows how purveyors of news often have incentives to mislead us, and how consumers of information often have incentives to be misled. And it chronicles how, as technology improves and the regulatory burdens drop, our information-scape becomes ever more littered with misinformation. Beyond Fake News argues that even when we really want the truth, our minds are built in such a way so as to be incapable of grasping many facts, and blind spots mar our view of the world. But we can do better, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals, we can improve the accuracy of our understanding of the world by knowing who to trust and recognizing our limitations. And as a society, we can take important steps to reduce the quantity and effects of misinformation. (shrink)

This study examines the potential of fake news to produce effects on social media engagement as well as the moderating role of education and government approval. We report on a 2x2x2 online experiment conducted in Romania, in which we manipulated the level of facticity of a news story, its valence, and intention to deceive. Results show that ideologically driven news with a negative valence have a greater virality potential. However, neither the level of education nor government approval moderate this effect. (...) Additionally, both positive and negative ideologically driven news stories enhance the probability that people will sign a document to support the government. These latter effects are moderated by government approval: Lower levels of government approval lead to less support for the government on social media, as a consequence of fake news exposure. (shrink)

‘Fake news’ has become an increasingly common refrain in public discourse, though the term itself has several uses, at least one of which constitutes Frankfurtian bullshit. After examining what sorts of fake news appeals do and do not count as bullshit, I discuss strategies for overcoming our openness to such bullshit. I do so by drawing a parallel between openness to bullshit and naïve skepticism—one’s willingness to reject the concept of truth on unsupported or ill-considered grounds—and suggest that this parallel (...) indicates three principles for how we ought to combat our openness to fake news and other bullshit. First, the root causes of bullshit openness are not monolithic; we should adopt anti-bullshit strategies in recognition of this fact. Second, our efforts to overcome bullshit openness should be collaborative efforts to create an environment that allows for sustained interrogation of our bullshit openness, rather than a confrontational provision of contrary evidence, despite the fact that such strategies are more time-intensive. Third, social media is unlikely to be a fertile ground on which we will make meaningful progress in the fight against bullshit because of the inherent nature of social media platforms as spaces for short, declarative, confrontational claims. (shrink)

In this paper, a particular case of deceptive use of images – namely, misattributions – will be taken in consideration. An explicitly wrong attribution (“This is a picture of the event X”, this not being the case) is obviously a lie or a mistaken description. But there are less straightforward and more insidious cases in which a false attribution is held to be acceptable, in particular when pictures are also used in their exemplary, general meaning, opposed to their indexical function (...) in referring to a specific event. In fact, the boundary between referential use and symbolic-exemplificative use is not always clear-cut, and it often becomes the subject of ideological dispute. The main point that this paper would like to do is that in some circumstances there is a deep-seated belief that images that are clearly misattributed could still be legitimately used to refer to the fact, even if this is not the case. This twisted epistemological stance, that I will summarize under the oxymoronic concept of “emblematic evidence”, is both the product of political and tribal polarization in the ideological debate, and the result of a shift in our understanding of what photographic images should do. (shrink)

The term "fake news" ascended rapidly to prominence in 2016 and has become a fixture in academic and public discussions, as well as in political mud-slinging. In the flurry of discussion, the term has been applied so broadly as to threaten to render it meaningless. In an effort to rescue our ability to discuss—and combat—the underlying phenomenon that triggered the present use of the term, some philosophers have tried to characterize it more precisely. A common theme in this nascent philosophical (...) discussion is that contemporary fake news is not a new kind of phenomenon, but just the latest iteration of a broader kind of phenomenon that has played out in different ways across the history of human information-dissemination technologies. While we agree with this, we argue that newer sorts of fake news reveal substantial flaws in earlier understandings of this notion. In particular, we argue that no deceptive intentions are necessary for fake news to arise; rather, fake news arises when stories which were not produced via standard journalistic practice are treated as though they had been. Importantly, this revisionary understanding of fake news allows us to accommodate and understand the way that fake news is plausibly generated and spread in a contemporary setting, as much by non-human actors as by ordinary human beings. (shrink)

Despite being a new term, ‘fake news’ has evolved rapidly. This paper argues that it should be reserved for cases of deliberate presentation of false or misleading claims as news, where these are misleading by design. The phrase ‘by design’ here refers to systemic features of the design of the sources and channels by which fake news propagates and, thereby, manipulates the audience’s cognitive processes. This prospective definition is then tested: first, by contrasting fake news with other forms of public (...) disinformation; second, by considering whether it helps pinpoint conditions for the proliferation of fake news. (shrink)

Recently, the term «fake news» has become ubiquitous in political and public discourse and the media. Despite its omnipresence, however, it is anything but clear what fake news is. An adequate and comprehensive definition of fake news is called for. We take steps towards this goal by providing a systematic account of fake news that makes the phenomenon tangible, rehabilitates the use of the term, and helps us to set fake news apart from related phenomena. (You can email us for (...) a penultimate draft of this paper.). (shrink)

An important way in which philosophy can contribute to public discourse is by clarifying concepts that are central to it. This paper is a philosophical contribution in that spirit. It offers an account of fake news—a notion that has entered public debate following the 2016 US presidential election. On the view I defend, fake news is Frankfurtian bullshit that is asserted in the form of a news publication. According to Frankfurt’s famous account, bullshit has two characteristics. There is, firstly, an (...) “indifference to how things really are” on the part of the bullshitter. This does not mean that what a bullshitter says is always false. It might well be true. What it does mean, however, is that, unlike a liar, who tries to convince us that a given statement he believes to be false is true, a bullshitter simply does not care whether what he says is true. The same, I believe, is true of the publisher of fake news. Secondly, the bullshitter misrepresents “in a certain way … what he is up to”. Likewise, the publisher of fake news seems to misrepresent what he is up to. It appears that he wants to hide his actual motives. At any rate, so I will argue. (shrink)

Philosopher Harry Frankfurt has famously coined “bullshit” as a technical term— it refers not to outright lying but rather to a casual indifference to truth. Disregard for truth is accepted and even expected in many contexts, yet it creates conditions for gross injustice and dehumanization. I offer an account of widespread cultural indifference to truth as structural sin, a condition I call “truth indifference.” Draw- ing on Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the virtue of truth (veracitas), I map out the conceptual (...) framework that must be in place before Christian ethicists can provide an adequate moral analysis of structural truth indifference. (shrink)

Taking its inspiration from the name of the recent ‘#FeesMustFall’ movement on South African university campuses, this paper takes stock of the apparent disrepute into which truth, facts and also rationality have fallen in recent times. In the post-truth world, the blurring of borders between truth and deception, truthfulness and dishonesty, and non-fiction and fiction has become a habit – and also an educational challenge. I argue that truth matters, in education as elsewhere, and in ways not often acknowledged by (...) constructivist, postmodernist and postcolonialist positions. (shrink)

Many of U.S. President Donald Trump’s business interests—and those of his family and close associates—either conflict or could conflict with his position as the country’s top elected official. Despite concerns about the vitality of the journalism industry, these actual or potential conflicts have been reported in great detail across a number of journalism platforms. More concerning, however, are the partisan news organizations on both the right and left that deliberately sow social discord by exciting deeply polarized political tensions among the (...) U.S. populous. Often described as “fake” news, these organizations produce reports that seem designed to create outrage among audiences instead of enlightenment. This paper draws upon social epistemology and information ethics to offer a truth-based ethos for journalism to help overcome this pernicious form of exploitation. (shrink)

Looking at the recent spate of claims about “fake news” which appear to be a new feature of political discourse, I argue that fake news presents an interesting problem in epistemology. Te phenomena of fake news trades upon tolerating a certain indiference towards truth, which is sometimes expressed insincerely by political actors. Tis indiference and insincerity, I argue, has been allowed to fourish due to the way in which we have set the terms of the “public” epistemology that maintains what (...) is considered “rational” public discourse. I argue one potential salve to the problem of fake news is to challenge this public epistemology by injecting a certain ethical consideration back into the discourse. (shrink)

Some have suggested that Jon Stewart of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS) and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report (TCR) represent a new kind of journalist. We propose, rather, that Stewart and Colbert are imitators who do not fully inhabit the role of journalist. They are interesting because sometimes they do a better job performing the functions of journalism than journalists themselves. However, Stewart and Colbert do not share journalists' moral commitments. Therefore, their performances are neither motivated nor (...) constrained by these commitments. Using a virtue theory framework, we suggest that this distinction between journalists and their imitators is morally significant because it implies differences in the kinds of excellence these moral agents are pursuing in their work. Rather than evaluating the work of Colbert and Stewart in the role of journalists, we propose analyzing their contributions to media ethics in the role of media critics. (shrink)

"Dishonesty inspires more euphemisms than copulation or defecation. This helps desensitize us to its implications. In the post-truth era we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth it might be called. Neo-truth . Soft truth . Faux truth . Truth lite ." Deception has become the modern way of life. Where once the boundary line between truth and lies was (...) clear and distinct, it is no longer so. In the post-truth era, deceiving others has become a challenge, a game, a habit. High-profile dissemblers compete for news coverage, from journalists like Jayson Blair and professors like Joseph Ellis to politicians (of all stripes), executives, and "creative" accountants. Research suggests that the average American tells multiple lies on a daily basis, often for no good reason. Not a finger-wagging scolding, The Post-Truth Era is a combination of Ralph Keyes's investigative journalism and solid science. The result is a spirited exploration of why we lie about practically everything and the consequences such casual dishonesty has on society. American society has become permeated from top to bottom by deception. Its consequences for the nature of public discourse, media, business, literature, academia, and politics are profound. With dry humor, passionate fervor, and deep understanding, Ralph Keyes takes us on a tour of a world where truth and honesty are no longer absolutes but mutable, fluid concepts. (shrink)

"Using hundreds of examples from newsrooms large and small, author Ron F. Smith challenges readers to determine how they would face moral dilemmas on the job. Chapters evaluate the search for principles, accountability, truth and objectivity, errors and corrections, diversity, "faking" the news, reporters and their sources, privacy, the government watch, deception, compassion, the business of news, journalists and their communities, and financial concerns. New to this edition: a chapter on improving coverage of minorities, expanded discussion of broadcast journalism and (...) reporting on the Internet, and stories from recent front pages and TV news programs."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)