Is there a sort of "diffusion of responsibility" for perpetuating falsehood? What I mean is that diffusion of responsibility usually refers to situations where few people, or even nobody, steps up and does what's right. But how about when something is put forward in a telephone-game-like scenario, for instance when a bad translation or misquote gets pushed along and changes the meaning of something? At each step, the person who spreads or adds to this effect is most likely not acting out of malice, but passively receiving signals that are distorted by his bias and then repeated. There is a sort of anonymity and innocence in letting one's own bias perpetuate a falsehood, especially when others with similar bias filters are repeating the signal in the same way. So is that really innocent and just a function of being a human and being biased, or is there an actual shirking of responsibility happening? In other words, is it really the fault of individuals in the same way it's the fault of individuals in situations where there's diffusion of responsibility? Are individuals more to blame, or less to blame when perpetuating falsehood (assuming they're in the majority who are acting without real obvious malice)? The people who try not to do this, and who correct themselves when they do, tend in my experience to be people who value education and the process of learning to think.
