“The Information Ethics Roundtable is a yearly conference that brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to, philosophy, computer and information science, political science, library science, journalism, and law to discuss ethical issues such as information privacy, intellectual property, access to information, artificial intelligence, and big data.
Scientific hoaxes (Feder 2017) and “quack” medicine (Kang and Pedersen 2017) are nothing new. But some are concerned that, with the rise of the internet, science is more seriously under threat from misinformation than ever before. In recent issues of the Journal of the American Heart Association and the Royal Society Open Science, scientists are sounding the alarm, arguing that our current digital environment is promoting the “wanton spread of medical misinformation” that is causing “significant harm” (Hill et al. 2019) and “undermining trust in science and the capacity of individuals and society to make evidence-informed choices, including on life-or-death issues” (Hopf et al. 2019). The 2020 Information Ethics Roundtable invites submissions that offer analyses, explanations, and/or solutions to the problem of scientific misinformation and disinformation in the digital era. We seek submissions that approach these issues from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with a potential to inform discussions of information ethics.”