RT Article
T1 Public Reason in Times of Corona: Countering Disinformation in the Netherlands
JF Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics
VO 34
IS 1
SP 61
OP 73
A1 Buijsen, Martin 1963-
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1925653463
AB Who should decide what passes for disinformation in a liberal democracy? During the COVID-19 pandemic, a committee set up by the Dutch Ministry of Health was actively blocking disinformation. The committee comprised civil servants, communication experts, public health experts, and representatives of commercial online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To a large extent, vaccine hesitancy was attributed to disinformation, defined as misinformation (or data misinterpreted) with harmful intent. In this study, the question is answered by reflecting on what is needed for us to honor public reason: reasonableness, the willingness to engage in public discourse properly, and trust in the institutions of liberal democracy.
K1 Covid-19
K1 Disinformation
K1 Information
K1 misinformation
K1 political public domain
K1 Public discourse
K1 public reason
K1 Reasonableness
K1 The Netherlands
K1 vaccine hesitancy
DO 10.1017/S0963180125000027