Echoes of covid misinformation

Bibliographic Data

ID21591785
AuthorsN Levy (0000-0002-5679-1986, Macquarie University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume36
Issue5
Pages931-948
Publication date2023-07-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09515089.2021.2009452
OpenAlexW3214120165
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited37

Public support for responses to the coronavirus pandemic has sharply diverged on partisan lines in many countries, with conservatives tending to oppose lockdowns, social distancing, mask mandates and vaccines, and liberals far more supportive. This polarization may arise from the way in which the attitudes of each side is echoed back to them, especially on social media. In this paper, I argue that echo chambers are not to blame for this polarization, even if they are causally responsible for it. They are not to blame, because belief calibration in an echo chamber is a rational process; moreover, the epistemically constitutive properties of echo chambers are not optional for epistemically social animals like us. There is no special problem of echo chambers; rather, there is a problem of misleading evidence (especially higher-order evidence). Accordingly, we ought to respond to misinformation about COVID neither by attempting to dismantle echo chambers nor by attempting to make people more rational, but rather by attempting to supplant unreliable higher-order evidence with better evidence.\n\n

Blame · Computer security · Economics · Epistemology · Misinformation · Pandemic · Political science · Social distance · Sociology · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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