by Petar Jandrić

Since the election of a number of right-wing populist governments across the world, there have been increasing concerns that fake news in online platforms is undermining the legitimacy of the press, the democratic process, and the authority of sources such as science, the social sciences and qualified experts. The global reach of Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms has shown that they can be used to spread fake and misleading news quickly and seemingly without control. In addition to their power and reach, these platforms operate, and indeed thrive, in what seems to be an increasingly balkanised media eco-system where networks of users will predominantly access and consume information that conforms to their existing worldviews. Conflicting positions, even if relevant and authoritative, can be suppressed, discredited or overlooked as a result of filter bubbles and echo chambers.

Digital technologies have contributed to the prolific spread of false information, encouraged ignorance in online news consumers, and fostered confusion about how to determine fact from fiction. These same technologies have, however, permitted marginalised voices to be heard (transgender and autistic communities, victims of street harassment, for example), encouraged diversity, facilitated error detection and investigative accountability, and challenged privilege and prejudice. This opens up myriad questions such as:

• How are online platforms designed to exploit particular vices such as close-mindedness, epistemic nihilism, insouciance, etc. and contribute to the power and dissemination of deception?
• Deception: what is it? Is there anything peculiar about the times in which we live that should raise special concerns about the proliferation of fake news, lies, bullshit and other such vices online?
• How do our individual and collective epistemologies interact with digital technologies to produce deceit?
• How can we counter epistemic vices online, and protect ourselves and our institutions from their potentially baneful effects?
• Can deception ever be justified? Is there anything to be learned from mass propaganda and deceit in other historical periods?

The epistemology of deceit in a postdigital era

To address these and related questions, Alison MacKenzie, Jennifer Rose, and Ibrar Bhatt have edited a book The Epistemology of Deceit in a Postdigital Era: Dupery by Design. The book offers strong theoretical and philosophical insight into how digital platforms and their constituent algorithms interact with belief systems to achieve deception, and how related vices such as lies, bullshit, misinformation, disinformation, and ignorance contribute to deception. This inter-disciplinary collection explores how we can better understand and respond to these problematic practices.

Continuing editors’ earlier work in the Special Issue of Postdigital Science and Education, ‘Lies, Bullshit and Fake News Online: Should We Be Worried?’, the contributors to the collection discuss the diverse ways in which deception is a pervasive feature of our communicative lives. Among the issues explored are how the design and infrastructure of digital platforms enable (or disable us from distinguishing between) what is true and truthful; fake or real; informative, disinformative or misinformative, malinformative, and other such information disorders. The scale of the dupery impacts on human rights, individual freedoms and dignity, agency and autonomy, in addition to the harms mentioned above.

The role of higher education is critical within this context, as universities have traditionally been regarded as sites of epistemic authority where knowledge is created and disseminated through the work of academics and theoretically grounded systems of teaching. Recent trends have shown that universities market the idea that an education through them will create ‘future-ready’, ‘globally-aware’ and ‘critically-thinking’ graduates, equipped with the relevant skills and knowledge to deal with issues facing our modern world, including public health crises, climate change and conflict.

The book was launched at a successful SRHE event held on 16 March 2021, in which editors, authors, and more than 100 members of the public engaged in a vivid discussion.

What is next?

These days, there is really interesting research taking place in different fields about post-truth and online deceit. Closer to higher education, and interesting example is Michael A Peters, Sharon Rider, Mats Hyvönen, and Tina Besley’s popular book Post-Truth, Fake News: Viral Modernity & Higher Education, which discusses the meaning and purpose of higher education in a ‘post-truth’ world.

Aided by a unifying postdigital theoretical framework which holds that human beings are systematically embedded in digital infrastructures, Alison MacKenzie, Jennifer Rose, and Ibrar Bhatt in The Epistemology of Deceit in a Postdigital Era: Dupery by Design make a unique contribution by reaching interdisciplinary boundaries to explore, examine and counter online deception, and analysing the power of social platforms and their role in the proliferation of epistemic harms. This line of inquiry is in its early days, and it will be very interesting to see where it will develop in the future.

Petar Jandrić is a Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Zagreb (Croatia), Visiting Professor at the University of Wolverhampton (UK), and Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Zagreb (Croatia). His research interests are focused to the intersections between critical pedagogy and information and communication technologies. He co-authored the chapter ‘Scallywag Pedagogy’ with Peter McLaren (Chapman University, California) in Post-Truth, Fake News: Viral Modernity & Higher Education. pjandric@tvz.hr