Misinformation is just false information. Under its heading falls satire, irony, fiction, exaggeration, miscalculation, and so on. The threat is not only too broad, but as it turns out, not that threatening at all. We’ve lived with some degree of it just fine for the entirety of human history, generally speaking.

But worse, the institutions commonly used to penalize misinformation have historically been the greatest progenitors of it.

On the other hand it seems reasonable to punish people for knowingly false bomb threats.

sure, that's already illegal and I beleive it should stay illegal.

So at least we agree with the principle that some speech shouldn't be allowed. The difficulty is in deciding exactly which speech shouldn't be allowed.

well this thread is about misinformation, not bomb threats. idk what OP thinks about bomb threats, but I disagree with OP about quite a lot of political things so he might think bomb threats should also be legal.

For me, misinformation is more about people lying about politically relevant facts - like making up stories about immigrants eating pets, for example.

Misinformation is just false information. Under its heading falls satire, irony, fiction, exaggeration, miscalculation, and so on. — NOS4A2

Is that what the book is including? Misinformation in such broad terms should of course not be prohibited. Generally when this subject comes up, its about actively conveying information to people that are lies, when the subject knows they are lies. So, not satire, irony, fiction, exaggeration, or miscalculation.

To that, do you see an issue with creating laws that prevent outright deception and lies to people on public platforms? Or should we allow people to deceive others without any risk? The law already forbids revenge, violence, and other forms of 'community regulation'. Can the community properly regulate purposefully deceptive facts with less harm then careful laws and the courts?

To that, do you see an issue with creating laws that prevent outright deception and lies to people on public platforms? Or should we allow people to deceive others without any risk? The law already forbids revenge, violence, and other forms of 'community regulation'. Can the community properly regulate purposefully deceptive facts with less harm then careful laws and the courts?

Yes, deception is terrible and immoral. It hurts being deceived, and further, to act on a false belief could lead to very real harm. More often or not this leads to some sort of penalty for the deceiver, for instance the loss of credibility, and as a result, the social and economical fruits that come with it.

Recall what Jaspers said. Both censorship and freedom will be abused. The question is, which abuse is preferable? Censorship leads to both the suppression of truth and its distortion, while freedom leads only to its distortion. Censorship is absolute, while distortion can be straightened out by freedom itself.

who decides and enforced what is true and what is false? Personally I can’t think of any people, alive or dead, fit for such a task. — NOS4A2

You must be right, nos4, truth is indeterminable. Hmm, that means there is no disinformation; it all must be information. Well, one thing your "argument" makes clear is that you're a weasel - its a weasel argument - and you know it, which is part of being a weasel. Or I'm wrong and you're right, in which case you're still a weasel because no one can show as true that you're not.

And of course, to be sure, the proposition that it is not possible to know truth from falsehood is just more disinformation - which is a weasel's business!

More often or not this leads to some sort of penalty for the deceiver, for instance the loss of credibility, and as a result, the social and economical fruits that come with it. — NOS4A2

I wish this were the case, but its often not true. Especially when someone is in a powerful position and the law does not punish them for their transgressions. If it were so easy to punish such things, why would there be a call for the law? There is a call for the law because society is currently inadequate at addressing these issues alone. We don't touch things like comedy, parody, or opinions, because its clear these things are not meant to be authorities on information. But when someone pretends to be an authority on information, when they clearly know what they are peddling is false, we're seeing in real time that there is a minority majority of society that cannot handle it.

I think the problem you often run into on these forums with your worldview NOS4A2 is your ideals are viewed through the lens of a very small community. Rules and massive societal regulations and laws come about as communities build. This is not a corruption, it is a necessary thing that must happen to assist with new community problems. It is actually natural for governments to form as societies grow. Show me a society of a several thousand people in a small living space without a government. It doesn't exist.

Your other problem is that you see that government can be corrupt, therefore it must be corrupt. Or that its corruption is beyond a minimal sense. Government is a tool, and like any social tool, if wielded right, it helps society. How do you think we're able to speak our minds without getting shot by our neighbors? A free society requires the management of resources and broad human conflicts.

Recall what Jaspers said. Both censorship and freedom will be abused. — NOS4A2

Which is why you build a government with safe guards and anti-corruption measures. Free and frequent elections. Rights, etc. The problem is that the peddling of false facts is corruption of the free market of ideas. It has long been ruled that yelling "Fire!" falsely in a theater to cause a stampede for your own amusement is not defendable. Why then should people peddling false information for their own gain in other areas suddenly be off limits? Corruption does not just apply to government. It applies to every single person.

freedom only leads to its distortion. Suppression is absolute , but distortion can be straightened out by freedom itself.

In the most extreme case of having people that are working from within the system to actively bring about what might be the end of democracy, or humanity in general, I would say that freedom takes a back seat.

That isn't to say that freedom isn't worth fighting for, or even dying for, but freedom is a function of what we can allow ourselves in the absence of existential threats to our existence. If you value freedom, then consider if the United States were indeed run by verifiable fascists. We would undoubtedly have even less freedom than we might have had had we suppressed portions of the media to prevent such a takeover. Do you actually think that the fascists wouldn't come for those that are reporting on truth once taking power? Everything except the accepted propaganda would be suppressed for being disinformation. Are you so naive, NOS, that you think you, as a gay vampire, would be unaffected?

Whether or not we have actually reached a tipping point with regards to disinformation I don't know. Maybe we wouldn't even have to suppress speech. But I no longer see anything wrong with it in principle - and especially if it means saving our country.

I note that many of the fears over misinformation mention the threat to some amorphous, ill-defined order. Both China and the EU have this in common. From the EU, “The risk of harm includes threats to democratic political processes, including integrity of elections, and to democratic values that shape public policies in a variety of sectors, such as health, science, finance and more.” Or for China it threatens to “undermine economic and social order”. It’s clear to me that it is a threat to the state. Therefor, digital authoritarianism and the control of information is required. — NOS4A2

Interestingly, for Aristotle democracy is inherently unstable, especially in the direction of populism. So is a democracy that is safeguarded from "threats to democracy" still a democracy? Is democracy a threat to democracy?

The irony here is that calls for censorship meant to safeguard democracy from threats to democracy are themselves a threat to democracy, and this seems fairly uncontroversial. At the end of the day a kind of theocracy with science or some other truth-approach at the helm is not democracy.

How about that - "kibosh" and "kvetch" in the same response. — T Clark

Admirably diverse. Kibosh has Irish roots, kvetch is yiddish. Kibosh has a nicely gruesome origin -- referencing methods of execution:

Slanguage, A Dictionary of Irish Slang"]. Coles' dictionary of "difficult terms" (1684) has cabos'd "having the head cut off close to the shoulders". It isn't clear to me what the relative advantages would be of having one's head cut off further up the neck or closer to the shoulders. At any rate, putting the kibosh on something is a most assertive and definitive act.

The meaning of KVETCH is "to complain habitually", like @NOS4A2 whining about suppression of misinformation.

I'm not familiar with the laws regarding false advertising. I assume it is considered a type of fraud. — T Clark

The federal Lanham Act (1946) allows civil lawsuits for false advertising that “misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin” of goods or services. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a). The FTC also enforces false advertising laws on behalf of consumers.

It's interesting that laws against false advertising weren't passed until 1946--if that is indeed when such protections were first put into place. A lot of "snake oil" products were advertised and sold with impunity, at least in the earlier 20th century, and generally false claims were made about a lot of products. "Caveat Emptor" is still a good idea, because lying, or intentional misrepresentation, hasn't disappeared.

Lying, misrepresentation, failure to inform, misleading manipulation of images and information, pettifogging, outright fraud, etc. are endemic, particularly when corporate prerogatives and profitability are at stake. Misinformation is the lifeblood of the petroleum industry, for example.

I wish this were the case, but its often not true. Especially when someone is in a powerful position and the law does not punish them for their transgressions. If it were so easy to punish such things, why would there be a call for the law? There is a call for the law because society is currently inadequate at addressing these issues alone. We don't touch things like comedy, parody, or opinions, because its clear these things are not meant to be authorities on information. But when someone pretends to be an authority on information, when they clearly know what they are peddling is false, we're seeing in real time that there is a minority majority of society that cannot handle it.

Well, we don’t have any say in the matter whether things like comedy, parody, and opinions are touched because we are not the authorities on such matters. So I think it’s a mistake to pretend that “we” in the grand sense, or society as a whole, have some sort of say.

I think the problem you often run into on these forums with your worldview NOS4A2 is your ideals are viewed through the lens of a very small community. Rules and massive societal regulations and laws come about as communities build. This is not a corruption, it is a necessary thing that must happen to assist with new community problems. It is actually natural for governments to form as societies grow. Show me a society of a several thousand people in a small living space without a government. It doesn't exist.

Your other problem is that you see that government can be corrupt, therefore it must be corrupt. Or that its corruption is beyond a minimal sense. Government is a tool, and like any social tool, if wielded right, it helps society. How do you think we're able to speak our minds without getting shot by our neighbors? A free society requires the management of resources and broad human conflicts.

I appreciate the critique. Thank you.

But in my defence the very small community I view it through is me. I only have one pair of eyes. The fact that you or anyone else are afflicted with the same limitation, and cannot view the world nor speak about it through anyone’s lens but your own, puts the very idea of a community lens into immediate doubt. I just don’t know enough people of any given community to see or speak for them, and I’m sure that is the case for most.

It’s just not true that rules and massive societal regulations and laws come about as communities build. They are imposed by very few individuals on the much wider society, and one can compare the amount of legislators at any given time to the amount of the rest of society in order to confirm this.

It is the history of states that leads me to believe governments are naturally corrupt. It’s an anti-social institution, an exploitative monopoly by its very nature and organization. As a rebuttal, I have a problem with the belief that as soon as a species of moral exemplars gain power, and use the government to help society and not themselves, it will no longer be. History attests to the opposite, and I would implore you to compare it against what I would call a dangerous hope.

Which is why you build a government with safe guards and anti-corruption measures. Free and frequent elections. Rights, etc. The problem is that the peddling of false facts is corruption of the free market of ideas. It has long been ruled that yelling "Fire!" falsely in a theater to cause a stampede for your own amusement is not defendable. Why then should people peddling false information for their own gain in other areas suddenly be off limits? Corruption does not just apply to government. It applies to every single person.

I’d love to get together with you and build safeguards and anti-corruption measures, but like the vast majority of human beings we do not have the power to do so. And it has long been overruled that falsely yelling “Fire!” in a crowded is indefensible, and was never a binding dictum in any law or otherwise. It’s just a popular analogy.

That isn't to say that freedom isn't worth fighting for, or even dying for, but freedom is a function of what we can allow ourselves in the absence of existential threats to our existence. If you value freedom, then consider if the United States were indeed run by verifiable fascists. We would undoubtedly have even less freedom than we might have had had we suppressed portions of the media to prevent such a takeover. Do you actually think that the fascists wouldn't come for those that are reporting on truth once taking power? Everything except the accepted propaganda would be suppressed for being disinformation. Are you so naive, NOS, that you think you, as a gay vampire, would be unaffected?

Of course the fascists would, so it makes no sense to afford them the power to do so. One of the best ways to avoid fascism is to not do what the fascists do, which in your idea is to suppress portions of the media to prevent such a takeover.

Their suppression is a gift to them. Note the Weimar fallacy, that had the Nazis been censored they wouldn’t have risen to power. The Nazis were routinely censored. Goebbels, Fritsch, and Julius Striecher were imprisoned for hate speech. Their publications were shut down (one hundred of them in Poland alone). Hitler himself was banned from speaking. Censorship did not help in the one instance where it should have. When Hitler debated Otto Wells regarding the Enabling Act he reminded Wells of how much he was censored, and this justified for him the passing of that law. They used these pre-existing laws to further suppress the opposition.

Interestingly, for Aristotle democracy is inherently unstable, especially in the direction of populism. So is a democracy that is safeguarded from "threats to democracy" still a democracy? Is democracy a threat to democracy?

The irony here is that calls for censorship meant to safeguard democracy from threats to democracy are themselves a threat to democracy, and this seems fairly uncontroversial. At the end of the day a kind of theocracy with science or some other truth-approach at the helm is not democracy.

It appears there are two-brands of "democracy" in conflict, the one that favors the power of the people, the other that favors the institutions that have arisen in representative democracies, for instance elections and parliaments and the credibility of those in power. It's an interesting conflict.

The point of misinformation in Russia is to have people just stop asking. It's like there's no truth anywhere.