Social media companies’ epistemic responsibility for disinformation

Are social media companies epistemically responsible for the spread of disinformation? Against the view that they are not responsible, on the grounds that they are passive conduits of information like telephones, I argue that they are responsible, on the grounds that they have discretionary control over the information shared on them and their audiences are vulnerable to that control. I identify two epistemic harms that social media companies are responsible for as the result of that control. I conclude that they are responsible for promoting a harmful form of epistemic distrust, which makes the nature of their responsibility importantly different from sources that generate disinformation.