Description
This paper argues information eco-systems in liberal democratic societies are vulnerable to exploitation by internal and external bad actors because technological advances have changed the way we consume information. Smartphones have democratised publishing, social media algorithms influence what we see and mainstream news media audiences are in decline. This combination means we have increased information volume – and decreased verification making it easier than ever before to conduit disordered information into public discourse. This takes the security issue beyond “just” disinformation because it is further argued that the influence of information eco-systems can distort what is seen as true or real – and if anything can be true at all. The undermining of how we can know – epistemic insecurity – promotes disordered discourses which have an epistemic logic which lowers the bar of proof. Crucially, the paper also presents a solution to this threat: for if anyone with a smartphone can publish, they should also be encouraged and enabled to verify for themselves. The University of Nottingham has worked in collaboration with the investigations website Bellingcat to teach open source investigation skills to undergraduates. The paper will present further research on the problem of epistemic insecurity and findings on teaching OSI skills to students in a classroom setting.
