Abstract
Thanks to the advent of social media, large numbers of Americans believe
outlandish falsehoods that have been widely debunked. Many of us have
a tendency to fault the individuals who hold such beliefs. We naturally
assume that the individuals who form and maintain such beliefs do so in
virtue of having violated some epistemic obligation: perhaps they failed to
scrutinize their sources, or failed to seek out the available competing
evidence. I maintain that very many ordinary individuals who acquire
outlandish false beliefs thanks to their use of popular social media platforms
(and other similar internet technologies) deserve little or no blame
for believing these falsehoods. Such individuals would be fully blameworthy
only if they had formed or maintained the relevant beliefs partly in
virtue of violating some epistemic obligation and had no excuse for
violating that obligation. However, the nature of these internet technologies
provides excuses for violating the relevant epistemic obligations,
and so individuals are excused for holding the resulting false beliefs.