With all the disinformation infused into our lives, I wonder whether we need to rethink First Amendment protections. Jeff Kosseff, author of Liar in a Crowded Theater, says absolutely not. I am not so sure. I understand the slippery slope of government regulation but I worry about the slippery slope we are on right now.
@jackiegardina whichever governmental apparatuses are empowered to regulate speech will at some point fall under the control of people with whom you (or I, or both) will profoundly disagree.
@hughfmurrayiii I know that it is the argument and I completely understand. I see it happening at the state level now--book bans, etc. But I am still deeply troubled. I don't have an answer but I don't think doing nothing is the answer either.
@jackiegardina @hughfmurrayiii Yeah, but those book bans are getting shot down by federal courts left and right... because of the 1st Amendment.
What would you consider changing?
@LouisIngenthron @hughfmurrayiii Great question. We do penalize certain lies, e.g. fraud, perjury, lying in the course of an investigation. If we penalize false speech that interferes with the administration of justice, why can't we come up with a standard when it comes to interfering with the administration of democracy/elections?
@jackiegardina @hughfmurrayiii We basically already have. That's a big part of what Trump is being tried for right now in Georgia.
It's just a high bar for a prosecutor to clear, as it should be. If it wasn't, then a politically-motivated bad actor would be able to far more adversely affect an election by wielding the force of law to punish a candidate for totally normal hyperbolic speech (i.e. "my opponent is a crook").
@LouisIngenthron @hughfmurrayiii I just did an interview for the podcast with leaders of an organization that are worried about the use of AI deep fakes in political advertising. It was an alarming conversation. I don't know that post-election civil or criminal trials are an effective way to address the damage to democracy. I know it is a difficult line to walk but I don't think are "business as usual" approach is going to work.
@jackiegardina @hughfmurrayiii Yeah, but the alternative is prior restraint on political speech, which is easily abused and far more dangerous.
More importantly: we're in the information age. Even if they wanted to prevent it, and had an objective framework for doing so, how could they? They can't hardly enforce the CAN-SPAM act or stop robocallers or prevent revenge porn.
The only reasonable answer we're left with is using the limited resources available to hold the most egregious violators to account (like SBF or Trump) as a warning to the others.
And when it comes to politicians, we have an even more powerful weapon: our vote.
I truly believe that the best answer to bad speech is not to try to silence the bad speech, but rather to drown it out with good speech.
