Identifying Political Participants on Social Media: Conflicts of Epistemic Justice

Abstract

Social media are now at the heart of political debate and discourse. Yet these media present challenges of epistemic justice because of the voices they may both amplify and suppress and the influence they wield. Contributions may be difficult to evaluate, especially if the identity of contributors is masked or unknown. Three approaches to these problems have predominated: regulating content, as in Germany; relying on the marketplace of open ideas to identify and criticize problems in contributions, as in the United States; and requiring transparency about the identity of social media users. This contribution sketches the epistemological disadvantages faced by consumers of social media and inquires whether they are different in kind from the disadvantages associated with more traditional media. It then sets out the epistemological difficulties of both content-regulation and the marketplace of ideas. It concludes with a defense of source transparency, tempered by the need to protect the identities of those who may be endangered by disclosure.