Fake News as Noxious Markets? (original) (raw)
We’ve all heard of fake news. But what exactly are we talking about? Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) define fake news as articles that are “intentionally and verifiably false,” for instance the “news” in 2016 that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency. Despite somewhat natural disbelief that anyone could actually take such “news” seriously, plenty of people did. And, as a consequence, at least some of them were reinforced in their belief that voting for Trump was, in fact, a good idea. I mean if the Pope says it!
Because fake news is, ahem, a real thing, the question obviously arises: What are we going to do about it? Many skeptics have argued that we need to teach critical thinking. In a complementary fashion, some philosophers have suggested that we should put more emphasis on “epistemic virtues,” i.e., on nurturing people’s respect for truth and the sort of behaviors that are truth-conducive (Pigliucci 2021).
Megan Fritts and Frank Cabrera—respectively from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison—have a different opinion. In a paper they wrote for the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, they suggest that the critical thinking/virtue epistemology approach doesn’t work and that fake news should instead be treated as a noxious market and therefore heavily regulated or shut down altogether (Fritts and Cabrera 2022).
A “noxious market” is one that (1) causes individual harm; (2) causes societal harm; (3) involves or requires weak agency on the part of participants; and/or (4) plays on deep vulnerabilities of participants (Satz 2010). According to philosopher Debra Satz, a market of this kind may be restricted when it inhibits citizens from being able to stand in an equal relationship with one another and the problem cannot be solved without restrictions (Satz 2010).
Examples of noxious markets include human body parts, child labor, toxic waste, sex, and life-saving medicines, though of course people disagree about whether all or only some such markets ought to be considered noxious and restricted or prohibited. I gather that few would disagree that child labor qualifies as a noxious market and should simply not be allowed. But some libertarians claim that consensual trafficking in human body parts is admissible, on the grounds that my kidneys are mine to dispose of. And several feminists see no problem at all with sex work, so long as the rights and safety of the workers are safeguarded.
Fake news is a market because creators of fake news make money out of advertisement driven by online traffic, mostly on social media. Moreover, social media moguls themselves make a profit out of the information they get (and resell) about consumers of fake news. According to Fritts and Cabrera, fake news markets cause harm at least along the first two dimensions identified by Satz and therefore qualify as noxious markets.
Fritts and Cabrera’s paper is of crucial relevance to skepticism, because it raises several questions we all ought to carefully think about. First, are the authors correct that teaching critical thinking and casting things in terms of virtue epistemology is ineffective and unhelpful? Second, are they right that fake news constitutes a noxious market? Third, should we seek to shut down, or at least heavily regulate, the fake news market?
Let’s begin with the idea that we should be teaching people about critical thinking with the aim to make them more epistemically virtuous or, at least, less epistemically vicious. Critical thinking has to do with seeking the truth, properly evaluating evidence, assessing arguments, honestly doing research, and several other character traits that fall under the general heading of epistemic virtues.
But Fritts and Cabrera actually doubt that the reason for the epidemic of fake news is widespread epistemic vice. In fact, they think that consumers of fake news can be modeled as respecting the rules of inductive and deductive inference. Perhaps they can, in some cases. For instance, it is possible that a conspiracy theorist legitimately and logically deduces his conclusion that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen by Joe Biden from certain premises concerning the mechanics of elections, the motives of members of the Democratic Party, the way voting machines work, and so forth. That is, it is conceivable—though I don’t think likely—that such a conspiracy theorist would correctly use the rules of inference given certain premises.
But the problem, in that case, would lie in one or more of the premises. If one begins with incorrect premises, one can “logically” arrive at all sorts of wrong conclusions by way of valid reasoning. Garbage in, garbage out, as computer programmers say. And failing to critically assess one’s premises, not properly checking the evidence that supports them, is a very serious epistemic vice. So, no, I don’t think that consumers of fake news are virtuous epistemic agents.
Fritts and Cabrera go on to point out that “the other side” has also gotten into the business of teaching “critical thinking,” citing the example of a fundamentalist church that offers one such course.1 But arguing that critical thinking is not a good thing just because someone who clearly does not practice it nevertheless attempts to ape it is utterly unconvincing. By that token, we should drop our support for science on the grounds that some people engage in “creation science.” Surely that is entirely irrelevant.
Moreover, Fritts and Cabrera claim that an epistemically vicious person is the least likely to respond to being taught virtue, so skeptics would quickly find themselves simply preaching to the converts. Setting aside that—as any good pastor knows—preaching to the converts is actually a very effective practice, by that standard why do we bother teaching anything to anyone who isn’t already interested? We do so because we attempt to stimulate interest where there was none before or even where there was hostility based on ignorance and fear.
One valid objection brought up by Fritts and Cabrera is that the empirical evidence is mixed as to the actual effectiveness of teaching critical thinking. This is true, but a quick search on Google Scholar reveals why: critical thinking is a very broad, and somewhat vague, umbrella term, which means that it is taught in a variety of manners, some of which will be effective and some not. Moreover, there are many variables that affect the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking, including the age of the students, the academic setting, the approach used by the teacher, the students’ background socio-economic factors, and so on. None of this means that we should give up on the idea, though. It just means that we shouldn’t expect miracles and that we should keep studying, on empirical grounds, what does and does not work.
Regarding the second question at issue—whether fake news is, in fact, an example of a noxious market—I think the point is debatable. Even markets that fit the definition of noxious as articulated by Satz may reasonably be considered not sufficiently problematic to justify intervention. Is the market for fake news more like the one for sex work or more like that for child labor? At the moment, I feel fairly agnostic on the question, and I think it would be reasonable to have further evidence-based discussions on the matter.
Finally, should we aggressively regulate or even shut down the fake news market? One way to consider the possibility is by examining how Fritts and Cabrera would go about doing it. They advocate the elimination of article 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation has called “the most important law protecting Internet speech.” Article 230 states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” It is worth noting that former President Trump is in favor of repealing 230 so he and his cronies can sue several websites for alleged censorship and defamation.
Of course, just because Trump supports an idea doesn’t mean that the idea itself is bad. But we ought at least to pause and consider things more carefully. Any time we advocate for legal restraints on free speech, we are embarking on a treacherous path. I hope we can all agree that curtailing speech should be a remedy of last resort and one that needs to be evaluated for effectiveness as rigorously as, or in fact even more rigorously than, any other alternative on the table.
Note
References
Allcott, H., and M. Gentzkow. 2017. Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives 3(2): 211–236.
Fritts, M., and F. Cabrera. 2022. Fake news and epistemic vice: Combating a uniquely noxious market. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3: 1–22. Online at https://philpapers.org/rec/FRIFNA.
Pigliucci, M. 2021. Virtue epistemology, anyone? Philosophy as a way of life. Online at https://philosophyasawayoflife.medium.com/virtue-epistemology-anyone-5fe99a1b33b7.
Satz, D. 2010. Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Massimo Pigliucci
Massimo Pigliucci is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His books include Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (Chicago Press) and Philosophy of Pseudoscience (coedited with Maarten Boudry, Chicago Press). More by Massimo at http://massimopigliucci.blog/.