As social media sites were flooded with misleading posts about vaccine safety, mask effectiveness, Covid-19’s origins and federal shutdowns, Biden officials urged platforms to pull down posts, delete accounts, and amplify correct information.
Now the Supreme Court could decide whether the government violated Americans’ First Amendment rights with those actions — and dictate a new era for what role, if any, officials can play in combating misinformation on social media.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in a case that could have sweeping ramifications for federal health agencies’ communications in particular. Murthy v. Missouri alleges that federal officials coerced social media and search giants like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google to remove or downgrade posts that questioned vaccine safety, Covid’s origins, or shutdown measures. Biden lawyers argue that officials made requests but never forced companies.
Government defenders say that if the Court limits the government’s power, it could hamstring agencies scrambling to achieve higher vaccination rates and other critical public health initiatives. Critics argue that federal public health officials — already in the throes of national distrust and apathy — never should have tried to remove misleading posts in the first place.
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Why? They will need to back their claims with, you know, evidence.
Like a map of a hurricane veering off course?
If you want to claim different from what a well established world renowned weather organisation predicts you better be even better more renowned, not some random shmo with a lot of theories and no proof.
Can they be wrong, that’s how predictions work they have a degree of certainty. But it’s nonsense to give some theory by someone the same credence as a world leading authority.
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Hence the regulations. Its bullshit that there needs to be balanced reporting of viewpoints and opinions.
No, the opinion of a dance teacher on covid and covid regulations is not of the same weight as that of specialists in Infectious diseases.
Same shit happened with climate change, letting mouthpieces of the fossil fuel industry on the air and giving them the same credence as people to spent their life researching the subject in a field with many peers.
And the fact someone has a PhD in an unrelated field does also not make them credible.
If evidence was at all convincing we would not be in this situation.
The only sensible take.
Sadly I think that allowing people to spread lies is a necessity. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre clearly is over the line….
Perhaps the line is at misinformation that is intended to do direct harm?
So illegal to say “drink bleach” but not illegal to say “Covid is a hoax”
I’m not sure, but that’s the best line in the sand I can think of without giving too much power to governments, or allowing too much harm from a lie.
Intended will do all of the lifting there… it encourages people to yell nonsense without any investigation. That way it can never be claimed they should have known better.
Agreed. You’ll have to prove that the person knows (or reasonably should have known) that his words were going to cause great harm to someone. Not unlike telling someone to “kill themselves” where we already have some established laws/rules etc…
Don’t governments already have and exercise this power in relevant fields? I certainly can’t lie on my taxes, and I certainly can’t use any of my internet identities for social security stuff other than the issued by the state, so.
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Covid is quite binary too: either it exists and people are sick and dying / already died, or it doesn’t and everyone is faking and the “dead” are pulling insurance scams. Sounds quite obvious and testable to me!
It’s simple: the one telling the truth is the one we know closest to the truth now. In a decade or two, when history changes, we can adjust on the go. Back in the 50s every doctor said bacon was healthy and eggs were the devil; in the 60s it was the turn of milk and bacon, respectively; then in the 70s, eggs and cheese. And so on. Sometimes you have to just be able to operate legally with information that is patently true and peer-reviewed.
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To me honestly it’s quite simple: like any other personal right, my “freedom of speech” ends where other people’s rights begin. If what I’m saying both is patently untrue and deals a net harm for society - be it because of what I’m saying it or because of how I’m saying it, then it can’t be protected. It would be backwards for the purpose of a State if it was.
So for your example of misinformation that we should punish people for, it’s quite patent-as-untrue stuff that leads to harm, such as “drinking bleach will immunize you from Covid!” (leads people to self-harm), or “it’s because of the niggas / gays / asians / anything non-Christian living in your neighbourhood” (leads people to cause harm to others). Something like “Covid doesn’t exist”, while patently untrue, does not invite harm in any way that I see as proportionally punishable (but for comparison “let’s organize to evade vaccinations because Covid doesn’t exist” does invite harm to others, so it should be punishable).
Then again this all assumes it’s only about government prosecution. XKCD “show the door” applies here for any private party who feels they are given harm by some nutjob announcing that Covid doesn’t exist and trying to convince my grandma to drink bleach over Instagram, and there’s no “but muh freedom of peach” complain to take about that.
Are you scared of courts? Because they’re a lost if the government whose job is specifically to decide who’s trying the truth.
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The difference is juries are required to pay attention to the evidence presented to them, and court proceedings ensure they aren’t exposed to one side of the issue they’re supposed to decide.