The Ethics of Evidence: Indian Muslims, Truth and Online Politics

Abstract

The primary thesis I will present is that for many Indian Muslims, political conflict over public information is intertwined with moral claims concerning public personas and ethical self-formation. I will focus on how Indian Muslim non-legacy online practitioners position their evidence-related practices as part of their efforts to work on themselves and their moral personas to become credible sources of public information. These non-legacy actors primarily include citizen journalists and fact-checkers, whose personas are often appropriated in modes of infamy. By highlighting two case studies from India, I will argue that the study of misinformation environments must be informed by questions of morality that extend beyond the typical epistemic focus on fake news, misinformation, and disinformation. The work on the online active self involves not only shaping a believable persona but also engaging in serious self-reflection, forms of askesis, and sacrifice that enable individuals to speak truth to power—a practice that allows the truth of one’s digital articulations to emerge from the moral quality of its bearer.