munity-based locations as physical space for education and training; and their staff, who are experts and can help citizens to train their media literacy skills and become aware of their cognitive biases.”
Right-wing suspicion of libraries? Asked if libraries may be less effective in combatting right wing truth decay because they are seen as left-leaning institutions, Stijn said: “In principle, truth decay is agnostic to political orientation. Both sides of the political spectrum are vulnerable to risks of truth decay, and there are plenty of examples where move- ments or individuals from the left and the right have acted as agents of truth decay. And populism has also manifested itself on both sides of the political spectrum. But it is hard to deny that we are expe- riencing a gaining popularity of populist right-wing movements, for whom libraries are clearly a lower priority. And I can follow the suggestion that their electorate is particularly vulnerable to truth decay, partly because of the limited access to tools that help mitigate truth decay, such as quality education, quality journalism, etc.” He added: “At RAND, we have been very careful not to politicise this topic, as we do not think it helps the debate or tackling the problem itself. Truth decay is not right-wing or left-wing, it is a problem for the functioning of democracies and societies as a whole.”
Academia
Truth Decay in Europe also looks at academia and discusses the publishing model as one of the drivers. The report cites research showing 1.97 per cent of scientists admitted fabricated, falsified or modified data and 33.7 per cent admitted other questionable research practices. Stijn said: “Of course academic libraries can help mitigate this trend. Although the academic funding model is probably
the main driver behind the ‘publish or perish’ culture, libraries may play a role in facilitating alternatives to this model. For example, by encouraging alternatives to traditional journal publications in dissem- inating scholarly results.”
Trust trap He said: “I think librarians are particularly skilled and well-trained to help tackle truth decay, particularly in distinguishing between fact and opinion, assessing relia- bility of sources, navigating the knowledge landscape, identifying potential sources of objective information, and not unimpor- tantly offering a historical perspective.” However, he warned against librarians gatekeeping access for their communities: “It may be attractive to believe that trusted knowledge brokers can help tackle truth decay by blocking access to unreliable, false or misleading information. But in a world where trust in institutions formerly respected as sources of factual informa- tion, data and analysis is under pressure, it may be better to call out such information, and explain why it is not reliable, than to censor it.”
Even when the volume of information is overwhelming he said librarians run the risk of being accused of censorship “if filtering means blocking access” but not “if it means highlighting sources that can be considered objective, fact-based, reliable, etc. whilst being transparent about that process and its rationale.”
Elections
With elections due in the UK and US what are the danger areas and possible solu- tions? Stijn suggests fast fact-checking is one way to combat truth decay. He says: “There are plenty of examples of mislead- ing claims by politicians during election campaigns. As such, they are in danger of becoming agents of truth decay. Boris’s £350 million to the NHS claim was one of the most famous ones.
“But let me give you an example from the Netherlands. Last summer, the government collapsed after the minister of Home Affairs (equivalent to Home Secretary), and member of Mark Rutte’s centre right party VVD, falsely claimed that thousands of immigrants settled in the Netherlands after their family, or “family of family” had successfully claimed asylum. The consequenc- es were significant as it blew up the coalition government. The national elections that followed were dominated by the perceived migration crisis and the right-wing anti-migration party of Geert Wilders won the elections. Later, instead of thousands, the actual figure turned out to be 40 family of family members in 2021 and 130 in 2022. “Had this claim been debunked immediately, would things have gone differently? I don’t know. But I do believe that political debates, party manifestos and election claims are helped by being scrutinised by quality journalism, fact checkers and objective researchers as an effective accountability mechanism in the democratic system. “Also in the Netherlands, there is a tradition of having the economic impacts of election manifestos for the economy and for households calculated by the Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), an independent govern ment body. This has always served as a safety valve to unrealistic proposals and unsubstantiated claims. In recent years, however, more and more political parties refuse to send their manifestos to the CPB, which is another token of the eroding role of facts and evidence in the political debate.” IP
l Book your place at CILIP Conference 2024 to hear more from Stijn on Truth Decay, by visiting
www.cilipconference.org.uk.
26 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
June 2024
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