UC Irvine

An account is offered of the nature of fake news, and it is explained how this account differs from the main proposals in the contemporary philosophical literature in this regard. One key feature of the account is the idea that fake news is not a genuine form of news. In particular, fake news is to be distinguished from genuine news that is epistemically problematic. It is argued that this point is important because it entails that what is required to differentiate news with a sound epistemic pedigree from news that has a poor epistemic pedigree is distinct from what is required to differentiate genuine news from fake news. This has implications for how we should manage the challenge posed by fake news, at both the individual and the structural levels.