The COVID-19 pandemic is an international public health crisis without precedent in the last century. The novelty and rapid spread of the virus have added a new urgency to the availability and distribution of reliable information to help curb its fatal potential. As seasoned and trusted purveyors of reliable public information, librarians have attempted to respond to the “infodemic” of fake news, disinformation, and propaganda with a variety of strategies, but the COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique challenge because of the deadly stakes involved. The seriousness of the current situation requires that librarians and associated professionals re-evaluate the ethical basis of their approach to information provision to counter the growing prominence of conspiracy theories in the public sphere and official decision making. This paper analyzes the conspiracy mindset and specific COVID-19 conspiracy theories in discussing how libraries might address the problems of truth and untruth in ethically sound ways. As a contribution to the re-evaluation we propose, the paper presents an ethical framework based on alethic rights—or rights to truth—as conceived by Italian philosopher Franca D’Agostini and how these might inform professional approaches that support personal safety, open knowledge, and social justice.

中文翻译：

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重新思考信息伦理：COVID-19时代的真理，阴谋论和图书馆员

COVID-19大流行是国际公共卫生危机，在上个世纪没有先例。该病毒的新颖性和快速传播为可靠信息的可用性和分发增加了新的紧迫性，以帮助遏制其致命潜力。作为经验丰富且值得信赖的可靠公共信息提供者，图书馆员试图通过各种策略应对假新闻，虚假信息和宣传的“信息大流行”，但由于涉及致命的危险，COVID-19大流行提出了独特的挑战。当前形势的严重性要求图书馆员和相关专业人员重新评估其提供信息方法的道德基础，以应对阴谋理论在公共领域和官方决策中日益重要的地位。本文在讨论图书馆如何以道德合理的方式解决真理和不真理问题时，分析了阴谋思维方式和特定的COVID-19阴谋理论。作为对我们提出的重新评估的贡献，本文提出了一种基于道德观念或真理权的道德框架，这是意大利哲学家弗朗卡·德·阿戈斯蒂尼（Franca D'Agostini）所构想的，以及这些观念如何为支持人身安全，开放知识的专业方法提供信息，以及社会正义。