The Department of Philos ophy is pleased to invite you to the 58th Western Canadian Philosophical As sociation (WCPA) annual conference-cum-colloquium lecture. The keynote talk will be given by Dr. Endre Begby\, Professor of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University.
Dr. Endre Begby has wide-ranging interests in philosophy \, but most of his work focus on issues in social epistemology\, on the cog nitive underpinnings of language and communication\, or in social and polit ical philosophy.
Talk Title:
Signal-to-Noise: T
oward an Alternative Account of the “Fake News” Phenomenon
Ab
stract:
Typical discussions in philosophy and elsewhere work
on the assumption that Fake News targets our democratic processes by way of
exploiting known weaknesses in our individual epistemic defenses: taking a
im at our naïve and gullible patterns of news consumption\, it aims to tric
k us into adopting new false beliefs\, or\, minimally\, to become less conf
ident in the beliefs that we already have. In short\, Fake News is designed
to persuade\, or else\, to confuse\, to sow doubt\, or instill skepticism.
This paper explores a different approach to the phenomenon: Fake New s can have a detrimental impact on our democratic processes without persuad ing or confusing anyone\, simply by driving down the signal-to-noise ratio in our information economy. It can thereby contribute to wide-scale disenga gement from the most inclusive platforms of information sharing in favor of more selective engagement on platforms where one can expect a higher signa l-to-noise ratio. As a result\, our public deliberations become less inclus ive\, less representative\, plausibly fanning processes of belief polarizat ion\, with predictably negative effects on our baseline democratic processe s.
I argue that this account fits better empirically with much of wha t we know about the FN phenomenon and also draws attention to issues that t ypically fall under the radar of discussion. In particular\, it calls into the question the discourse centered on creating public awareness of a “Fake News epidemic”: by encouraging us to think of our fellow citizens as “dise ase vectors” in the spreading of disinformation\, such rhetoric entrenches the idea that we would do better\, epistemically speaking\, by significantl y shrinking our “epistemic bubble” – i.e.\, the set of people in whom regul arly place our epistemic trust – to the point of its becoming a reinforced “echo chamber.”
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