Is disinformation protected by the 1st Amendment?

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

Disinformation drives me insane when it's done to whip people into a paranoid frenzy, but I'm not interested in stopping the idea. You are allowed to believe and post anything not directly threatening. Like death and terror threats shouldn't be allowed.

And misinformation is only indierectly threatening when gone uncontested.

I have no problem with consensus (a la MSM) denoting it as misinformation. That doesn't outlaw or criminalize it, it just notes that, "This idea may be patently lacking in credibility."

May Allsides or Mediabias rate it as moonbat misinformation and devoid or truth if deemed as such.

Trump & Co. is allowed to say whatever crazy thing they want, but it shouldn't, in ANY universe, be a violation of Freedom of Speech, even if noted as false.

The false statements are not being stopped so much as having a consensus driven disclaimer added on. It seems like the anger is that people are daring to call their opinion false.

Should a ridiculous statement like "Haitians migrants eat dogs and cats" be allowed without scrutiny?

They're not Vietnamese. Its a different palette.

[midicon]

Disinformation drives me insane when it's done to whip people into a paranoid frenzy, but I'm not interested in stopping the idea. You are allowed to believe and post anything not directly threatening. Like death and terror threats shouldn't be allowed.

And misinformation is only indierectly threatening when gone uncontested.

I have no problem with consensus (a la MSM) denoting it as misinformation. That doesn't outlaw or criminalize it, it just notes that, "This idea may be patently lacking in credibility."

May Allsides or Mediabias rate it as moonbat misinformation and devoid or truth if deemed as such.

Trump & Co. is allowed to say whatever crazy thing they want, but it shouldn't, in ANY universe, be a violation of Freedom of Speech, even if noted as false.

The false statements are not being stopped so much as having a consensus driven disclaimer added on. It seems like the anger is that people are daring to call their opinion false.

Should a ridiculous statement like "Haitians migrants eat dogs and cats" be allowed without scrutiny?

They're not Vietnamese. Its a different palette.

The lies from the left are more pernicious. I think you missed that part out.

[UltraBudgie]

It just becomes such a confusing, suffocating mess. For example, on Facebook you can say "Zionism is poisoning Israel", because that's pretty clearly a political opinion and is not using Zionism as an antisemetic proxy-term for Jew. But, you can't say "Zionism is poisoning American media", or "Zionism is poisoning American politics", because that buys into the antisemetic trope of Jews running the world or controlling the media; clear proxy-term there. You could say "Zionism is unsustainable", because that's an opinion on a political movement, but you can't say "Zionism is invalid", because that's a denial of existence for a protected class. Policy

It gets even worse when you start talking about enemies of the American state. None of the platforms want to allow support of terrorism. For example, Facebook bans this:


Not because of antisemitism, but because of community standards on dangerous individuals and organisations. Source

And there's the crux: what falls under that umbrella?  Well, Facebook's policy is that it includes "entities and individuals designated by the United States government as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) or Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs)" Policy

The author made the point:

This is indistinct from government censorship. If the US government designates its enemies as “terrorists” and massive Silicon Valley platforms are censoring criticism of US wars against those enemies in order to be in compliance with US law, then the US government is just censoring speech which criticizes US warmongering, using a corporate proxy in Silicon Valley.

So this is straying a bit from the topic of mis/mal/dis information specifically, but the exact same dynamic is being played out there as it is with hate speech and support for extremism. We've seen attempts to create government boards to determine exactly what is and isn't disinformation, and tech media companies are pulled before Congress and browbeat in various ways to get them to accept an authoritative source in their policy operations. Certainly during COVID the red line on what was acceptable speech for public safety was set by government entities.

All this is akin to government-mandated infringement of free speech, just with more steps. And as the graph I posted on page 1 shows, the American public is increasingly conforming to view it favourably.

[Anna]

Lots of talk from pols about stopping disinformation, misinformation.

I see a trend developing where such claims will enable government(s) to censor.

The only truth will be government sanctioned and approved of, truth!

 " If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell


So. . . is misinformation protected or not?

I think that such poll results stem from the fact that we have a difficult and tumultuous international situation. People might feel insecure and expect some protection from their government. It happens in the times of crisis, even artificial crisis, like the Covid "pandemic." 

Any attempts to ban the so-called "disinformation" are an example of a "nanny state" trying to protect its citizens from themselves. The underlying idea is that the majority of people are too stupid to verify the information for themselves and can be easily manipulated by a hostile propaganda. Which is true, by the way.

The question is whether a liar can protect the people from other liars. The governments use disinformation too and it's all good if the lie serves their agenda. So the whole point is not the fight for truth as much as combating a hostile propaganda.

[UltraBudgie]

Should a ridiculous statement like "Haitians migrants eat dogs and cats" be allowed without scrutiny?

They're not Vietnamese. Its a different palette.

Zing! If you don't love cats and dogs, you just haven't found the proper recipe yet.

And misinformation is only indierectly threatening when gone uncontested.

There is the argument that it saturates the debate. Sucks the oxygen out of the room so to speak. Makes something that would be clearcut appear to be a divisive issue, a matter of opinion. People put it in the mental box of "well let's just wait and see that's contentious right now".

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)

The question is whether a liar can protect the people from other liars. The governments use disinformation too and it's all good if the lie serves their agenda. So the whole point is not the fight for truth as much as combating a hostile propaganda.

The "fight fire with fire" approach. Problem is, when you fight mud with mud, everyone ends up filthy. You can't burn the village to save it.

[putnam6]

Anything the government restricts usually morphs into something even more radical, if you ban it people will just find other ways to communicate. Leaving one type of person on the monitored social media echo chamber. 

Better to let people speak freely so you know who the nutjobs are

[UltraBudgie]

Anything the government restricts usually morphs into something even more radical, if you ban it people will just find other ways to communicate. Leaving one type of person on the monitored social media echo chamber. 

Better to let people speak freely so you know who the nutjobs are

Yeah. That's why DI and, previously, ATS, are allowed to exist, relatively unmolested. If you slam the Overton Windows on their fingers, they'll either break the glass or find the door.

[727Sky]

Lots of talk from pols about stopping disinformation, misinformation.

I see a trend developing where such claims will enable government(s) to censor.

The only truth will be government sanctioned and approved of, truth!

 " If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell


So. . . is misinformation protected or not?

[UltraBudgie]

I mean they tell you exactly who they are: "See BS News"

[Tarzan the apeman.]

What would this do to election season? There is a lot of misinformation when it comes to that.