Deciding what constitutes "misinformation" is highly subjective and can lead to censorship of diverse opinions. A government empowered to regulate speech based on content risks suppressing valid dissenting voices. While misinformation can be dangerous, attempting to police speech can lead to unintended consequences and threaten democratic principles. Instead, a better approach is to provide accurate information, promote critical thinking, and foster open debate. Maintaining individual freedom for everyone across the country is more important than the lives of a few people who choose to follow misinformation.
The problem is, who gets to decide what is misinformation?
If you declare misinformation as a reason for banning something, you really just create an arms race to declare anything you don't like as misinformation in order to ban it.
Misinformation is fought in the market of free speech and ideas and critical thinking. Not by banning it. That's just might makes right.
It's too difficult to define misinformation to use as a concept that restricts free speech.
Just look at how much we've learnt about corona viruses these last two years. Many widely accepted truths today might have been considered misinformation early on in the pandemic.
"Misinformation is a problem that genuinely threatens society."
Misinformation is magnitudes of order less dangerous than restricting free speech.
The antidote to bad speech is more (hopefully good) speech, not less speech.
I like to be able to spot the idiots and know who they are and where they stand, not to put them underground where they inevitably fester into violence in their bubbles.
God forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform. Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves creating however it suited their purposes or political alignments previously.
That anyone who even basically believes in the importance of free speech and individual freedom should jump on the same bandwagon of paranoia about members of the public holding and promoting ideas that aren't always "correct" or literally correct and calling this a threat to freedom is absurd. This is a complete turning of cause and effect upon its head. No, the danger is explicitly much more so in the idea that some supposedly proper consensus of ideas should be enforced so that nobody does something silly, like voting for the "wrong" candidate, or viewing certain medical mandates in the "incorrect" way.
Whenever I see a headline with the word "misinformation" or in this case "disinformation", i replace those words with "free speech" and it really worries me about the future of this country. Putting the power to decide what information is right and wrong into the hands of a few is extremely dangerous.
"Stop the spread of misinformation" is a subset of "stop the spread of information", which is yet one more way of saying that some people can't stand the freedom of speech.
And who is to decide what is information and what is misinformation? Google? US government? Sergej? Google Shareholders? Youtube users by voting? Pope? Churches? Some poor employee tasked of tagging content? AI algorithm? A man pretending to be an AI?
As much as I hate misinformation, I hate censorship even more because it's easy to misuse. None should have a power to decide on one and only ultimate source of truth.
Misinformation is a necessary evil for free speech to exist. Is there any organization/individual/government that you trust to be the arbiter of truth?
> misinformation is itself an assault on free speech.
Misinformation is a type of free speech. Whether purposeful (medical experts lying as to whether we should wear masks) or accidental (weather forecasting,) misinformation is merely a facet of freedom, to use wisely or not. Some instances are made illegal (e.g. in a stock exchange,) whereas most instances are seen as harmless (Santa Claus) or used to prevent greater harm (this shot will only hurt a little, Louise.) What's healthy is to reserve a bit of skepticism towards the information you get till you can confirm it is 'truthful' or not.
Something i rarely see come up: misinformation is itself an assault on free speech. You are confusing the minds of people who have a right to the truth and therefore the freedom to express themselves. If someone believes a lie that was told to them, their thoughts aren't really their own. They were manufactured by a people whose goal was to gain something out of their ignorance. By contrast, if you were told the truth, you actually have the axiomatic foundations necessary to produce unique thought.
Your right to spread misinformation cannot be justified on the grounds of free speech.
Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate.
Why must fight all censorship. Because once you allow "a thing" to be censored, it becomes possible to censor "any thing".
Things in the past which were labeled misinformation and would have been suppressed for even longer (or forever) under current social attitudes of censoring anything that might make us feel bad.
- Leaded gasoline poisoning all of the country.
- Tobacco is addicting and gives you cancer.
- Agent Orange caused US military health problems.
- PTSD is a mental health issue (denied since at least WWI).
Remember all the power/leeway you give to the "left" (or right) will also be misused when the "right" (or left) take power again.
I agree that the potential for future abuse of a power to regulate misinformation is high. That does not necessarily mean that it outweighs the current value, but I think reasonable people can disagree about this and I think it’s a debate we should be having, given the events of 1/6.
I don’t want to get into an argument about which side is worse here or whether they’re equivalent. Suffice it to say, we have different perspectives and I don’t think discussing that is enlightening here.
In this specific debate, if "misinformation" is forbidden, whoever gets to decide what is classified as "misinformation", will control society.
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