Fake News Needs to be Stopped

Abstract

Throughout the course of this paper I have three main goals. I will begin by first arguing alongside Regina Rini to give readers an understanding of her argument that fake news requires an institutional change. Secondly, I will reveal that fake news is frequent and unavoidable and how believing testimony from co-partisans is individually reasonable. Then, I will discuss why institutions such as social media companies must take action and how they should. Lastly, I will discuss objections to this argument and explain why they are invalid.

Introduction

Throughout the course of this paper, I will be referencing the 2017 paper by Philosopher Regina Rini. This paper titled, “Fake News and Partisan Epistemology,” tackles the complicated topic of Fake News. In this paper, she discusses many complex aspects of fake news and gives insight into the epistemology of co-partisan testimony. Through the paper she claims that fake news requires an institutional change rather than an individual solution. This is a stance that I agree with. She then goes on to give potential solutions that could be implemented by the institutions who allow the abundance of fake news that currently spreads, to do so.

Twenty-Three percent of people say that throughout their lives they have unknowingly shared something untrue (Barthel 1). This opens the conversation of co-partisan testimony. What this refers to is the idea that people give more credibility to the testimony of their co-partisans. Co-partisans are people who share similar political affiliations with an individual. These can come in the form of in-person and online relationships. Rini claims that people should not blindly trust their co-partisans, but that if they do assign greater credibility to them that this is reasonable assuming that they share normative values. This deems any testimony that is shared in this fashion as bent on the grounds that it does not have sufficient evidence to back it up. I believe that this claim by Rini is true as it takes into account the idea that most people don’t share information with the intent to do harm. This furthermore pushes the idea that individuals do not have the tools necessary to decipher all news and decide if it is true or false.

After discussing the epistemology of co-partisan testimony I will now discuss the ways that fake news plagues the lives of individuals everyday and how this issue can be improved. Throughout this paper, I will be sharing the unavoidable exposure of fake news that every individual experiences, the improvement that social media should undergo, and I will discuss objections that Rini’s argument has faced. This is an important topic to me because I am a media consumer and the amount of fake news that I personally have been exposed to is unbelievable. For this problem to be solved, there must be institutional change.

Frequent and Unavoidable Exposure

One of the biggest issues with fake news is the fact that it is unavoidable. When scrolling through any social media app, there is no ability to decipher what is real and what is fake. There is such a vast amount of information that users are often in a state of information overload. When given this much unchecked information there are many detrimental effects. Oftentimes, people are so overwhelmed with the large amount of fake news that they stop seeking out information overall. Statistics collected in 2022 showed that 15% of people said that exposure to fake news led to them reducing their news consumption overall (Statista 2022). Misinformation is actively standing in the way of people getting awareness on real-world issues.

The epistemology of co-partisan testimony as discussed earlier can also have negative effects on people’s reputation. People that like or share anything on social media are telling their followers that the piece of information they posted is true, but in a lot of cases the information is not true. People can be judged and discredited just because they reposted something that someone who shares beliefs with them also posted. This doesn’t go to say that people shouldn’t be aware of what they’re posting, but it means that long-lasting effects can come from a simple mistake. For example, what if someone you know posted a comedic image that had fake claims against a celebrity. What they might post as just a joke another individual could see and believe those claims. Problems like this occur constantly which is why Rini created an argument that a retweet should not be seen as an endorsement, because there is too much left up to interpretation for people to reliably tell if something is real or fake. She says that people must just agree that nothing anyone shares is true until you have found reasonable evidence to prove it.

Social Media Improvements

If social media networks had an effective way of disclosing what information is true and what is false, it would be a more enjoyable place. People rely on their fellow partisans for information, and in societies that people can trust and learn from others they are more successful (Rini 46). It is argued that it is epistemically virtuous to take information that your fellow partisans have shared or endorsed. There is potential that someone could have unknowingly shared something that is untrue, but if social media sites have a more substantial fact checking or credibility system, the problem would be stopped before it could even start.

Another potential solution to this issue that is presented by Rini is a reputation score. This score would be given to each user on a social networking site and it would determine how credible their testimony is and if what they are sharing is backed in facts or in fake news. This type of rating would ensure that users of social media sites have an understanding of the validity of who they are consuming information from. This system would need to be very complex and would have to be completely unbiased. Is a system like this even possible?

As philosophers and seekers of information, we hope that credible information becomes easier to access. With a system like this implemented people would be able to seek out knowledge with no fear of it being completely wrong. The issue of resharing information that is shared by co-partisans would be absolved because people would know if the co-partisan that they assume is credible actually is.

Objections and Replies

One of the objections that Rini discusses is the idea that people believe that it is an individual’s job to research and discover what is true or false before they endorse or share it. They also believe that it should be their job to decipher if any information that any of their co-partisans share is true or false also. Individuals are expected to find credible sources and stick with them. Every aspect of learning and discovering information should be their job.

I believe that this claim is very incorrect. Although people should be diligent in discovering whether a piece of information is true, there is no reason for the job to fall on them. Yes, social media can be an unreliable source, so it should be fixed. Instead of telling users to look elsewhere for their information since it may be false. People are going to continue to use social media as a source for news and media, so the best way to solve the problem is to add credibility systems for people to be able to learn new information without having to worry if it is true or false.

Another objection that must be taken into consideration is the idea that online testimony should be perceived differently than in person testimony. This relates to the idea that people should not believe what others share online on the basis that they do not have enough knowledge about the person to agree or disagree with information that they have shared. People should be more cautious when interacting with co-partisans online because people can create a false persona online and it may never even be known. The objection is basically that in-person interactions are more genuine and should be regarded as more trustworthy than an online testimony. When online people should not just trust a source based solely on the impression that the source has the same views as you, because there is no personal connection or reliability of the source.

I would argue that most people’s co-partisans online are people that they have met in-person and that without proof that in-person testimony is more reliable than online testimony there is no basis to create the argument. Also, this objection doesn’t give us a solution to the pressing issue of fake news. It just speculates a possibility that people are more likely to spread honest information in person. The problem is that whatever information they are spreading in person or online was probably discovered from online sources. So the issue still persists because they could have received the information from a bent form of testimony. Creating a reputation score and reinforcing fact checking for all online news sources and co-partisan testimonies would solve this issue completely,

Conclusion

All of Rini’s claims regarding fake news include the idea that the issue of fake news requires and institutional, rather than individual solution, believing and sharing co-partisan testimony is individually reasonable on the basis that the two parties have the same normative values, and that fact checking and a reputation score would help to prevent the immense amount of fake news that is spread on a daily basis. I agree with all of these claims and support the motion to have all social media networks and news outlets to implement the changes necessary.

As consumers we do not have the power to dictate what information is presented to us. Trying to reveal if new found information is true or false is harder than ever. In our over politicized lives we are expected to be knowledgeable on so many topics and there is intense social pressure for people to be informed and to share that information with our social media followers. This pressure has led to a rise in fake news that has caused detrimental effects to our society.

For this issue to be solved, Institutions must take action to restructure their platforms to give their users an understanding of the credibility of their peers. Every repost that is shared amongst the followers of an individual could be taken as the truth. Once it is shared every person that follows the individual is exposed to that information and they may not know whether it is true or false. If the social networking companies implemented a reputation score and prioritize their fact checking systems, people would have more reliable access to true information.

Creating a world in which anyone has access to trustworthy sources of knowledge, we will have more active and conscious thinkers. People like this will change the world and to do that we must first start with the institutions that connect their ideas.