Archiving Uncertainty-Toward Epistemic Transparency in Post-Truth Collections

Abstract Fake news spreads quickly, images are easily manipulated, and people don't know who to trust anymore. In such a time, we need to rethink what archives are and how they work. This paper looks at a new idea called epistemic transparency: being open and honest about how archives make decisions, what they choose to keep, and what they're uncertain about. Drawing on real examples like Bellingcat (an investigative group), the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), and the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, it argues that archives need to change to stay trustworthy. Rather than hiding disagreements and debates, archives should preserve them, so people can see how our understanding changes over time. When archives embrace uncertainty and are transparent about their work, the paper concludes, they become places for learning and discussion rather than storage rooms claiming to hold "the truth."

Keywords: archival ethics, epistemic transparency, post-truth, digital preservation, community archives, misinformation