Refuting a lie aims at its audience, not the liar

Evidence

The lesson here is that one must always fight back against lies. We should never assume that any claim is “too outrageous to be believed.” A lie is told because the person telling it thinks there is a chance that someone will believe it. We might hope that the listener has enough common sense not to believe it, but in an age of partisan manipulation and fragmentation of our information sources, keyed to play on our motivated reasoning, we are no longer entitled to that assumption. The point of challenging a lie is not to convince the liar, who is likely too far gone in his or her dark purpose to be rehabilitated. But because every lie has an audience, there may still be time to do some good for others. If we do not confront a liar, will those who have not yet moved from ignorance to “willful ignorance” just slip further down the rabbit hole toward full-blown denialism, where they may not even listen to facts or reason anymore? Without a “counternarrative” from us, will they have any reason to doubt what the liar is saying? At the very least it is important to witness a lie and call it out for what it is. In an era of post-truth, we must challenge each and every attempt to obfuscate a factual matter and challenge falsehoods before they are allowed to fester. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 315

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the epistemic-bubbles debate about whether debunking persuades believers; this argues counterfactual-convincing only works on the not-yet-committed. — connects to: Contradicting false claims serves the claimant, not just the audience — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 805; Repeating a false claim to debunk it increases its plausibility — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 164; Repeating a statement increases belief in its truth regardless of accuracy — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 65

Broader Connections

• Contradicting false claims serves the claimant, not just the audience #qualifies (0.85) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 805
• Repeating a false claim to debunk it increases its plausibility #qualifies (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 164
• Repeating a statement increases belief in its truth regardless of accuracy #complicates (0.72) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 65