The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth

Arming Americans to defend the truth from today’s war on facts.Disinformation.

Trolling.

Conspiracies.

Social media pile-ons.

Campus intolerance.On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common.

But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multifront challenge to America’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.In 2016, Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same.

Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods and too often didn’t even seem to try.Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself.Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: “cancel culture”.

At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony.