Knowledge Under Threat: Misinformation and Content Moderation

The threat of misinformation is widely recognized, but not well understood. This threat can be illuminated through epistemological concepts, especially the conditions thought to be necessary for knowledge. According to many epistemologists, knowledge requires beliefs that are both true and warranted. Misinformation can thus threaten knowledge by interfering with any of the truth, belief, and warrant conditions. In short, misinformation presents a three-pronged threat to knowledge. Here, I offer an overview of this three-pronged threat and argue that attending excessively to one prong can lead parties to neglect, and even exacerbate, the others. In particular, I argue that some forms of content moderation targeting misinformation can exacerbate the threat to knowledge. Only truths are candidates for knowledge. Hence, misinformation threatens knowledge by increasing the chances that consumers will be deceived into forming false, as opposed to true, beliefs. This deceptive threat of misinformation is especially recognizable, as those deceived by misinformation sometimes engage in violent and otherwise destructive behaviors. Thus, the deceptive threat of misinformation is widely discussed among academics, journalists, and the broader public, and a broad range of interventions have been proposed to mitigate it. However, an excessive emphasis on the deceptive threat of misinformation can distract from, and even worsen, further ways in which misinformation threatens knowledge. One cannot have knowledge without beliefs, but fears about the prevalence of misinformation can foster distrust in various sources of information, thereby suppressing belief. This is the skeptical threat of misinformation. Attending to the skeptical threat makes clear how certain responses to the deceptive threat of misinformation can be counterproductive. For example, excessively publicizing or exaggerating the prevalence of fake news can undermine trust in a broad range of information retrieved online. Similarly, as I ultimately argue, content moderation aimed at addressing the deceptive threat of misinformation can exacerbate the skeptical threat. Only warranted true beliefs constitute knowledge. Thus, misinformation can interfere with knowledge by threatening the warrant condition. This is the epistemic threat of misinformation. While epistemologists disagree concerning how to substantiate this condition, it is widely accepted that warrant can be compromised by compromising the significance of available evidence. For example, deepfakes can reduce the significance of video footage by increasing the likelihood that video footage of fictitious events exists. More generally, misinformation reduces the evidential significance of corresponding authentic information. In this way, the skeptical threat of misinformation is rooted in a reasonable reaction to its epistemic threat. The removal of misinformation from social media would appear to be a promising strategy for combatting the deceptive, skeptical, and epistemic threats. This appearance is not entirely mistaken. However, removing misinformation from social media encourages the perception that the information that remains is subject to the control of potentially ill-motivated interests, thereby reducing its evidential value. This is especially true where the content removed is ideologically charged. In this way, content moderation generates epistemic and skeptical threats of its own.