On the moral responsibility to be an informed citizen | Psyche Ideas

Two arguments support the view that people’s belief-forming and information-sharing behaviour generally does not fulfil the epistemic condition of responsibility.

1. How people treat new claims are based on previous experiences, which are based on previous experiences etc. But this view would indicate that people's behaviour is only based on an involuntary sequence of events.
2. People do have some degree of agency. They form ideas from information environments of old and new forms of media, education and cultural institutions and virtual spaces.

If we accept that citizens are not primarily causally responsible for our poor information environments, they may still have a remedial responsibility to fix them.

However, it is unclear when a person is informed if it will improve information practices.

• Many people will react defensively to simply being blamed for their ignorance.
• If responsibility could be articulated without blaming citizens, there is no guarantee that citizens would successfully practice their responsibility to be informed.

Citizens should be encouraged to do what they can to prevent disinformation. For example:

• Staying mindful of the sources of online information
• Pausing to consider the context, bias or the satirical nature of a story before sharing
• Checking the publication date
• Disinformation is effective when repeated often, so try to remain critical of outlandish content that you encounter repeatedly.
• Be aware of cheapfake videos as they create manipulations by conventional editing techniques.
• Reverse image searches can also reveal suspicious sources for specific images.

Leaning away from individual responsibility means that the burden should be shifted to those who have structural control over our information environments.

Solutions include placing accountability and responsibility on technology companies, government, regulatory bodies, traditional media and political parties.