by Claude Opus 5.5
Rini argues that sharing on social media is a weak form of testimony with diffuse accountability. Does this make individual sharers less culpable or more?
Much of the harm in the case behind these seminars has travelled through acts of sharing. After the names of the accused were published, posts identifying them, commenting on their guilt and, in one case, misidentifying an innocent man spread rapidly across social media. Most of those who shared did not originate any claim; they passed on what others had posted, sometimes with comment, often without. Regina Rini has argued that this kind of sharing occupies an ambiguous place in our practices of testimony. Her analysis invites the question whether that ambiguity reduces or increases the culpability of individual sharers.
Rini’s account
In “Fake News and Partisan Epistemology” (2017), Rini argues that sharing on social media is a form of “bent testimony”. When I tell you something directly, I assert it, and I am accountable for its truth: if it turns out false, you can hold me responsible. When I share a post, the norms are unclear. I may be endorsing it, flagging it as interesting, mocking it, or simply passing it on. Because sharers can retreat to the claim that they were not asserting anything (“just sharing”, “retweets are not endorsements”), the accountability that normally disciplines testimony is weakened. At the same time, recipients often treat shared content as if it had been vouched for, especially when it comes from people they trust. Rini concludes that this gap between how sharing is received and how sharers understand their responsibility is a central mechanism by which misinformation spreads, and she argues that it calls for changes in norms and in platform design.
The case for reduced culpability
Several considerations suggest that individual sharers are less culpable than people who make direct assertions.
Unclear norms. Culpability depends partly on what one can reasonably be expected to know about one’s obligations. If the norms of sharing are genuinely unclear, sharers may not realise that they are making something like an assertion, and their failure to verify may be less blameworthy.
Small individual contribution. In a viral cascade, each share adds marginally to the spread. Where harm is overdetermined, any one sharer’s causal contribution may be negligible.
Lack of intent. Most sharers do not intend harm; they may intend to support the complainant, express outrage or inform others.
The case for increased culpability
Other considerations point the other way.
Exploiting ambiguity. If sharers benefit from the ambiguity of sharing, gaining the social rewards of spreading a claim while disclaiming responsibility for its truth, that is itself a form of bad faith. Culpability can increase when one deliberately avoids accountability for a foreseeable effect.
Knowing the reception. Many sharers know, or should know, that their followers will treat shared content as credible. Sharing with that knowledge, without verification, is reckless with respect to the content’s truth.
Participation in collective harm. Christopher Kutz has argued that individuals can be accountable for collective harms in which they participate intentionally, even if their individual contribution makes no difference. A person who shares a post naming a supposed perpetrator participates in a collective act of accusation, and shares responsibility for its consequences.
Low cost of care. Checking a claim before sharing is usually easy. When precautions are cheap and the potential harm is grave, as with naming individuals in connection with sexual violence, the failure to take them is more culpable, not less.
Resolving the question
The two sets of considerations can be reconciled by distinguishing what the ambiguity of sharing does to excuses from what it does to obligations.
Rini’s analysis shows that sharing is weaker testimony in the sense that it carries weaker accountability under current norms. That might partially excuse naive sharers who genuinely do not understand that their shares function as endorsements. But it does not reduce their obligations; if anything, it shows that the practice needs stronger norms. And once one is aware of the dynamics Rini describes, as most frequent users of social media plausibly are, the excuse weakens. Sharing in full knowledge that it functions as weak endorsement, without verification and about a matter of grave consequence, is reckless.
The context also matters. Sharing a link to a careful news report is different from sharing a post that names an individual as guilty. Sharing a claim about a public institution is different from sharing a claim about a private person. The greater the potential harm, the more demanding the duty of care.
Applying this to the case
Individuals who shared the misidentification of an innocent man contributed to grave harm. Some may have been naive; many probably knew how sharing works. Their individual causal contributions were small, but their participation in a collective accusation was real, and the precautions they omitted were cheap. On balance, they are not less culpable than direct asserters in any way that matters morally; they are differently culpable, for recklessness rather than for intentional falsehood.
Conclusion
Rini’s account explains how sharing escapes the accountability that disciplines testimony. That explanation might excuse naive sharers, but for informed sharers it exposes a form of recklessness: exploiting the ambiguity of sharing to spread grave claims without vouching for them. In cases involving named individuals and serious allegations, sharers bear real responsibility, and the diffuse character of the practice is a reason for more care, not less.