Is disinformation protected by the 1st Amendment?

[Ray1990]

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?

It would probably depend on intent. A bs artist running misinformation campaigns is completely different than the misinformed talking and sharing crap.

I would be more worried about absolute financial ruin if I lived in the US and had a habit of talking complete crap. Once a bs artist is no longer inconsequential there'll be a good chance of them participating in a lawsuit.

I'm hardly an expert on US law although I'd imagine misinformation could happily fall into one of the categories of unprotected speech such as perjury, defamation or even inciting lawlessness.

I can see social media being forced to do more although that doesn't necessarily mean changing the laws for individuals, it would be about more regulation and facilitating already existing laws.

Personally I like reading people's reactions to obvious misinformation, I'd be lying if I didn't admit to how dangerous bs can be though, there's far too many cases of people losing their minds and committing crimes over falsehoods.

Government sanction truth? That's a funny proposal... Governments lose cases in their own courts never mind international ones lol. You'd have already lost quite a few rights just to make such a thing feasible, the right to misinformation would be the least of your worries.