Knowledge, Democracy, and the Internet

Abstract

The internet has considerably changed epistemic practices in science as well as in everyday life. Apparently, this technology allows more and more people to get access to a huge amount of information. Some people even claim that the internet leads to a democratization of knowledge. In the following text, we will analyze this statement. In particular, we will focus on a potential change in epistemic structure. Does the internet change our common epistemic practice to rely on expert opinions? Does it alter or even undermine the division of epistemic labor? The epistemological framework of our investigation is a naturalist-pragmatist approach to knowledge. We take it that the internet generates a new environment to which people seeking information must adapt. How can they, and how should they, expand their repertory of social markers to continue the venture of filtering, and so make use of the possibilities the internet apparently provides? To find answers to these questions we will take a closer look at two case studies. The first example is about the internet platform WikiLeaks that allows so-called whistle-blowers to anonymously distribute their information. The second case study is about the search engine Google and the problem of personalized searches. Both instances confront a knowledge-seeking individual with particular difficulties which are based on the apparent anonymity of the information distributor. Are there ways for the individual to cope with this problem and to make use of her social markers in this context nonetheless?

Appendix: Wendy Doniger and Wikipedia: A Case Study

Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago, is internationally known for her studies of Hinduism and of mythology. Today, in 2016, she has a perfectly normal Wikipedia page, one that begins by listing some of her many achievements.

It was not ever thus. In 2009, Doniger’s Wikipedia page looked very different. A “Background” section offered a very brief outline of her career. The bulk of the page consisted in a “Criticism” section, consisting of quotations from various commentaries. According to the passages cited, Doniger was “known for being crude, rude and very lewd in the hallowed portals of Sanskrit Academics.” Her translations from Sanskrit were characterized as “unreliable and idiosyncratic.” The entry placed Doniger in a virtual pillory.

People who read it got the message. One of them had a friend – someone we’ll call M – who had long been interested in Hinduism and who had profited from reading some of Doniger’s books. M recommended Doniger to others with similar interests, and was told that Doniger was “very controversial.” The Wikipedia page was cited as the authority.

So, in 2009, M looked at that page. M also looked at the comparable pages for other plainly controversial figures – political leaders, for example. None of them showed the same lack of balance. Appalled by Wikipedia’s complete silence about the many accomplishments that had earned Doniger an enviable international reputation, M decided to write to her about the page. Having recently – temporarily – retired after a successful business career, M volunteered to work on fixing the page. Doniger responded by explaining that others had already tried to do so, and that the venture was hopeless. Corrections were always quickly taken down, so that the page reverted to the hatchet job M had read.

In 2009, Doniger’s work was the focus of a huge controversy. That year, Viking/Penguin had published The Hindus: An Alternative History, in which Doniger looked at Hinduism from the perspectives of outsiders, rather than presenting the orthodox vision of the Brahmin authors who had previously defined it. The book received highly positive reviews in many places, and was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award. In India, however, it was subjected to vitriolic denunciations, especially in the blogosphere, and Penguin/India eventually agreed to withdraw the book from circulation. (In fact, many copies continued to be sold, usually under plain wrappers, and the book was eventually republished in India by another company.)

Although M was aware of all this, the extreme mischaracterization on the Wikipedia page provoked a resolution to set things right. M spent a month researching Doniger’s career, and constructed a careful biography, deliberately neutral in its tone. The biography was sent to Doniger, who approved it – although she continued to believe in the impossibility of setting the record straight.

On August 4 2009, M entered the lists, writing under the pseudonym meetoohelp. Correction began with the insertion of a more complete list of Doniger’s publications. That was followed with the biography, and some other amendments to the Wikipedia page, in particular a more balanced collection of comments from reviewers of her work.

M’s last alteration was submitted at 2.54 p.m., 26 minutes after the first correction had been entered. Less than a minute later, another interested party, Priyanath, deleted everything M had submitted. Patiently, M reinserted the material, responding to the reason Priyanath had given for the bulk deletion. From 5.30 p.m. until early the next morning, the exchange is comical – Priyanath takes away, and M puts back. M is consistently courteous, showing a restraint rarely found on the internet.

By August 6, the page seemed to have stabilized. M’s interventions had decisively altered the original tone, offering a more accurate picture of Doniger’s work, the praise it had received and the criticisms leveled against it. Priyanath had apparently settled on making smaller changes. The page continued to be revised by Goethean, another Doniger champion, who attended to many details. Then in October 2009, Spdiffy launched a series of modifications, aimed at reverting to a negative picture of Doniger’s work.

At this point, M and Goethean joined forces to turn back the latest challenge. Plainly, however, the passions aroused by Doniger’s work would be expressed in further attempts to undermine her credibility. M had decided to return to work, and would no longer have the time to monitor the page at the required frequency. Learning from Doniger that the University of Chicago had a small fund available to enable its faculty to hire assistants for scholarly purposes, M proposed that Goethean be enlisted to keep an accurate page up to date; if the funds were inadequate to cover all the hours Goethean would have to devote to the task, M volunteered to make up the difference.

The arrangement has worked. Doniger’s current Wikipedia page provides a reasonably accurate account of who she is and what she has done. But maintaining it has been an enormous struggle.

How does this episode bear on the issues about epistemic democracy that have been our central concern? First, it shows how democratic exchanges can lead to the construction of a reliable channel of information. Even without the invocation of official experts – hordes of Sanskritists and specialists in Hinduism testifying to some account of Doniger’s achievements – the page eventually stabilized on something informative and accurate. But it also shows how chancy the process was. Without M’s persistence and – unusual – politeness, Priyanath, Spdiffy, and others who followed them might easily have carried the day. Without Goethean’s constant hard work, and, behind it, the support provided by the University of Chicago and (potentially) by M, Doniger’s opponents could surely have chipped away around the edges (at very least). The success depends on highly unusual background conditions.

Even before the controversy about Doniger’s page, Wikipedia had rules about writing “Biographies of Living Persons.” They were an attempt to provide something like a constitutional protection against character assassination, by setting limits to what the “citizens” (the contributors) could do. As far as we can tell, the version of the page Priyanath, Spdiffy and their successors wanted to retain was in clear violation of the rules. It still took a determined effort to produce a more balanced account of Doniger’s intellectual contributions.

We see this case as supporting the main conclusions of our essay. The epistemic democratization offered by the internet is a conservative extension of the existing division of epistemic labor. But we see a thorough survey of examples like this one as a potential route to going further than we have done. A study of a variety of instances in which what is found at a particular site is shaped by protracted struggles among parties with incompatible views, might help improve the epistemic democracy the internet has so far provided.