Before Trust, There Is Truth, We Thought Before Trust, There Is Truth, We Thought We explored how convenience reshapes behavior, and how security and privacy concerns, once visible and occasionally inconvenient, were moved into the background. Platforms promised to carry the burden. Users accepted the promise. Over time, questioning became less habitual; not because people consciously rejected it, but because the environment no longer demanded it. questioning became less habitual There is a deeper consequence of this shift. When questioning fades, something more fundamental than vigilance is affected. The practice of asking whether something is reliable, verifiable, or accurate is not merely a procedural safeguard; it is part of how societies relate to truth. If that practice weakens, the effects extend beyond usability or governance. They begin to alter the very conditions under which trust can form. My favourite writer, Vladimir Nabokov, once wrote that “reality is a very subjective affair.” He did not suggest that reality is arbitrary, nor that all interpretations are equal. Rather, he pointed to the layered nature of perception. A botanist sees more in a lily than a passerby because attention refines sight; in other words, knowledge deepens recognition. In that sense, subjectivity is not a denial of truth but a discipline that approaches it gradually, through care and accumulation. In this sense, subjectivity resembles what phenomenological reduction sought in the work of Edmund Husserl and Roman Ingarden, a disciplined return to experience rather than a denial of reality. reality is a very subjective affair. a disciplined return to experience rather than a denial of reality Our contemporary digital environment encourages a different relationship to perception. Information is abundant, personalized, and algorithmically curated. What we encounter is often aligned with prior preferences, previous interactions, and predicted engagement. Reality does not necessarily deepen through sustained inquiry; it adjusts to us. The friction that once invited verification is replaced by immediacy, and the effort required to cross-check claims is easily deferred. None of this means that truth disappears. It means that our engagement with it becomes less deliberate. When verification feels costly and convenience is rewarded, shared standards begin to erode quietly. Trust, in such an environment, no longer rests primarily on commonly examinable facts but increasingly on affinity, repetition, and identity. When truth becomes negotiable, trust becomes tribal. When truth becomes negotiable, trust becomes tribal When Facts Need Adjectives When Facts Need Adjectives When language begins to compensate for instability, it often signals that confidence in the underlying concept has weakened. Language is often the first to register subtle shifts in culture as it absorbs tension long before institutions or policies do. The appearance of phrases such as “authentic facts” or “real truth” is therefore not merely stylistic excess. It is a quiet indicator that something once taken for granted now requires reassurance. The expression is peculiar. A fact, in principle, is something that holds independently of our preferences. In the classical sense, from Aristotle onward, truth was understood as the alignment between statement and reality - saying of what is that it is. To call a fact authentic is to imply that a fact might also be inauthentic. The phrase reveals a subtle erosion. When the word “fact” no longer carries sufficient authority on its own, it begins to demand reinforcement. We do not usually say “authentic gravity” or “real mathematics.” Yet we increasingly qualify facts, as if they were vulnerable objects whose legitimacy must be defended in advance. a subtle This is not simply a semantic twist. It reflects a deeper transformation in how truth functions in public life. The boundary between fact and fabrication has blurred in everyday discourse. The speed of information flow, the incentives of engagement-driven platforms, and the constant exposure to competing narratives create an environment in which claims circulate long before they are examined. transformation in how truth functions in public life Under such conditions, the distinction between error, interpretation, and deliberate falsehood becomes harder to sustain. A “fake fact” is, strictly speaking, a contradiction in terms. It is either false or it is not a fact. Yet the expression persists because the category itself feels unstable. This is where the earlier argument returns. If truth becomes something that requires adjectives to survive, then trust cannot remain unaffected. Trust presupposes not perfection, but some shared confidence that claims can be tested and that evidence matters. When that confidence thins, trust shifts from assessment to affiliation. shared confidence that claims can be tested and that evidence matters From Critique to Fragmentation From Critique to Fragmentation The weakening of truth did not begin with social media. It has deeper intellectual roots. Modern thought, particularly in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, developed a healthy suspicion toward absolute claims. Philosophers, historians, and social theorists reminded us that what is presented as objective truth is often shaped by perspective, context, and power. This critique was not destructive by design. It was corrective. It challenged dogmatism, exposed hidden assumptions, and opened space for marginalized voices. Relativism, in its philosophical form, was an invitation to humility. It suggested that our access to truth is mediated - by language, by culture, by history. It did not necessarily deny truth itself; rather, it questioned our certainty about possessing it fully. our access to truth is mediated In that sense, relativism enriched intellectual life. It encouraged examination instead of obedience. The difficulty arose when this disciplined skepticism migrated from philosophy into everyday culture without its methodological constraints. Detached from careful argument and embedded within mass communication systems, suspicion toward authority gradually became suspicion toward any shared standard. The critique of certainty evolved into a tolerance for indifference. Digital platforms did not invent this shift, but they amplified it. When every claim appears alongside its counterclaim, when visibility is governed by engagement rather than verification, and when algorithms personalise informational streams, perspectivism becomes lived experience. Each user encounters a tailored reality, curated by prior behaviour and predictive modelling. they amplified it What began as an epistemological caution becomes structural fragmentation. In such an environment, disagreement is no longer merely interpretive. It becomes ontological. People do not simply disagree about what events mean, they disagree about what events occurred, instead. they disagree about what events occurred The distinction is decisive. A society can sustain interpretive disagreement. It struggles to function without minimal agreement about facts. When Truth Is Contested When Truth Is Contested The weakening of shared truth is not theoretical. It can be observed in documented episodes where evidence was available, yet agreement did not follow. Consider the persistence of the claim that vaccines cause autism. The original 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, published in The Lancet, was later fully retracted due to ethical violations and methodological fraud. Subsequent large-scale studies involving hundreds of thousands of participants found no causal link between vaccines and autism. Yet the claim continues to circulate widely, often cited as an established fact within certain communities. The evidence was corrected, but the narrative endured. The Lancet The evidence was corrected, but the narrative endured Or take the aftermath of the 2020 United States presidential election. Courts across multiple jurisdictions reviewed allegations of systemic fraud. Dozens of cases were dismissed for lack of evidence. Election officials from both major parties publicly affirmed the integrity of the process. Nonetheless, significant portions of the electorate continue to assert that the election outcome was illegitimate. Here, disagreement does not centre on interpretation of policy or ideology, but on whether verified procedural facts are to be accepted at all. verified procedural facts are to be accepted at all Another example lies in climate science. The overwhelming consensus among climate researchers, reflected in repeated IPCC reports, affirms that global warming is occurring and that human activity is a primary driver. Yet public discourse frequently presents climate change as an open question of belief rather than a matter of accumulated evidence. Scientific consensus coexists with public contestation, not because data are absent, but because epistemic authority is unevenly recognised. These examples differ politically and culturally, yet they share a structural feature: the presence of documented evidence does not guarantee shared acknowledgment of that evidence. the presence of documented evidence does not guarantee shared acknowledgment of that evidence The fracture lies not in the absence of facts, but in the weakening of common standards for accepting them. If we do not like the truth, we can create our own - a parallel one, a truly social one. Sounds familiar, does it not? Trust After Truth Trust After Truth Trust does not stand on its own. It leans on something prior - on the belief that claims can be tested, that evidence matters, and that disagreement can be resolved by more than volume or repetition. When that belief weakens, trust does not vanish. It shifts. It attaches itself to identity, to familiarity, to alignment. We begin to trust those who sound like us, not necessarily those who are right. Systems may continue to operate. Platforms may scale. Artificial intelligence may grow more capable. But the ground beneath them becomes less stable. trust those who sound like us, not necessarily those who are right This condition did not appear suddenly. Decades ago, intellectual debates questioned the certainty of grand narratives and challenged the neutrality of knowledge. Those critiques had value because they encouraged humility and exposed hidden power structures. Yet over time, skepticism escaped the discipline that once shaped it. What began as a call for careful inquiry gradually turned into a tolerance for competing realities. a tolerance for competing realities In a networked environment built on hyperlinks, personalisation, and lateral association, that widened skepticism found infrastructure. Information no longer arrives through layered hierarchies of validation. It appears as nodes connected by relevance, proximity, or engagement. Context becomes fluid. Authority becomes optional. And when truth becomes negotiable, trust follows it. What remains to be examined is not only what we believe, but how our informational structures shape what can be believed at all. what how At the end, let me return to Nabokov. That which is not named does not exist. Unfortunately, everything has been named. That which is not named does not exist. Unfortunately, everything has been named. That which is not named does not exist. Unfortunately, everything has been named. Further Reading & Conceptual References Further Reading & Conceptual References Nabokov, V. - Conclusive Evidence / Drugie Berega / Speak, Memory (Subjectivity, perception, and the layered texture of reality)
Aristotle - Metaphysics (Foundational articulation of the correspondence theory of truth)
Ingarden, R. - The Literary Work of Art (Layered ontology and structured realism within phenomenology)
Lyotard, J.-F. - The Postmodern Condition (Critique of grand narratives and transformation of knowledge in late modernity)
Foucault, M. - Power/Knowledge (Discursive regimes and the political construction of truth)
Arendt, H. - Truth and Politics (Distinction between factual truth and political manipulation)
Leitgeb, H. - What Is Truth? (Systematic overview of contemporary analytic theories of truth)
Lewandowsky, S. - Beyond Misinformation: Understanding and Coping with the ‘Post-Truth’ Era (Psychological mechanisms behind misinformation persistence)
McIntyre, L. - Post-Truth (Philosophical examination of the erosion of shared epistemic standards)
Sunstein, C. R. - #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Echo chambers, polarisation, and digital epistemology)
O’Connor, C. & Weatherall, J. O. - The Misinformation Age (Network dynamics and the spread of false beliefs)
Social Science Research Council - The Modern Origins of Our Epistemic Crisis (Media structures and institutional drivers of epistemic fragmentation) Nabokov, V. - Conclusive Evidence / Drugie Berega / Speak, Memory (Subjectivity, perception, and the layered texture of reality) Nabokov, V. Conclusive Evidence / Drugie Berega / Speak, Memory Aristotle - Metaphysics (Foundational articulation of the correspondence theory of truth) Aristotle Metaphysics Ingarden, R. - The Literary Work of Art (Layered ontology and structured realism within phenomenology) Ingarden, R. The Literary Work of Art Lyotard, J.-F. - The Postmodern Condition (Critique of grand narratives and transformation of knowledge in late modernity) Lyotard, J.-F. The Postmodern Condition Foucault, M. - Power/Knowledge (Discursive regimes and the political construction of truth) Foucault, M. Power/Knowledge Arendt, H. - Truth and Politics (Distinction between factual truth and political manipulation) Arendt, H. Leitgeb, H. - What Is Truth? (Systematic overview of contemporary analytic theories of truth) Leitgeb, H. Lewandowsky, S. - Beyond Misinformation: Understanding and Coping with the ‘Post-Truth’ Era (Psychological mechanisms behind misinformation persistence) Lewandowsky, S. McIntyre, L. - Post-Truth (Philosophical examination of the erosion of shared epistemic standards) McIntyre, L. Post-Truth Sunstein, C. R. - #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Echo chambers, polarisation, and digital epistemology) Sunstein, C. R. #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media O’Connor, C. & Weatherall, J. O. - The Misinformation Age (Network dynamics and the spread of false beliefs) O’Connor, C. & Weatherall, J. O. The Misinformation Age Social Science Research Council - The Modern Origins of Our Epistemic Crisis (Media structures and institutional drivers of epistemic fragmentation) Social Science Research Council

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