Except there have always been limits on speech, centered mainly on truth. Your freedom of speech doesn’t extend to yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire, for instance.
But we live in an age of alternative facts now, where science isn’t trusted if it comes up with conclusions that conflict with your world view. Do you get a pass if you are yelling “Fire” because you are certain there are cell phone jammers in the theater that are setting your brain on fire because you got the COVID shot and now the 5G nanoparticles can’t transmit back to Fauci’s mind control lair?
Technically, it’s causing a panic that’s illegal. Yelling fire is not. law.stackexchange.com/…/is-it-illegal-to-yell-fir…
Different states have different laws, of course, and I am not a lawyer, I just googled if it was actually illegal. Don’t actually go yelling fire in a crowded theater.
Right, it’s perfectly fine to alert people to a fire if there actually is one. Yelling “fire” when there isn’t one will be generally interpreted as causing a panic.
FireTower@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yes. Anyone in good faith attempting to warn others of any potential harm that they believe to be true to the best of their abilities should have their speech protected.
dhork@lemmy.world 10 months ago
But what if their beliefs are verifiably false? I don’t mean that in a sense of a religious belief, which cannot be proven and must be taken on faith. I mean that the facts are clear that there are no 5G nanoparticles in the vaccine for cell phone jammers to interfere with in the first place. That isn’t even a thing.
It’s one thing to allow for tolerance of different opinions in public. It’s another thing entirely to misrepent things that can be objectively disproven as true, just because you’ve tied it to a political movement.
I_Has_A_Hat@startrek.website 10 months ago
But where do you draw the line? Sure, microchips in vaccines is one thing, but what about simply warning people the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread of disease? During the pandemic, that would get you crucified, except now it turns out it really isn’t very effective at stopping transmission.
I was and am pro vax. It saves lives. But I’m also not going to pretend there wasn’t a weird animosity towards anyone saying anything contrary to the official, government sponsored, talking points during the pandemic. People were vilified for suggesting the virus came from a lab. Or that masks weren’t as effective as we were making it out to be. Or that the tests were producing false results.
It’s all well and good to say people shouldn’t spread falsehoods, but sometimes the lines of what’s true are blurred through the lens of hindsight when they seemed so clear in the moment.
dhork@lemmy.world 10 months ago
One is the insidious things about misinformation is that it always starts with pieces that can’t be proven one way or the other. The Lab Leak theory is a perfect example, since there happens to be a lab in the same city as where the virus was first found. But many of the people who were pushing the theory were then extending it to “The Chinese made a bioweapon on purpose”, which was not supported by any facts at all, and was serving a political agenda.
Later, when some studies came out that couldn’t disprove the lab leak theory in its entirety, some used that as justification in saying that the Chinese bioengineered it, when that’s not at all what those studies said. But they use that kernel to try and prove the whole corny premise.
FireTower@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yes. Because those with perverse incentives in power will falsify the truth to punish critics.
dhork@lemmy.world 10 months ago
So there is no objective truth anymore, and any fact you don’t like can be dismissed by saying the Deep State is at fault? Is there a (((conspiracy))) to hide the fact that the Moon is really an egg?
grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I wrote a comment about this earlier today. People who have been brainwashed to believe total nonsense often act in ways that are rational to them, but irrational to people who see the world through different eyes.
That’s fine until it’s violent action.
The alcoholic who thinks he’s “fine to drive” believes he’s perfectly rational. He’s drunk all the time and no accidents. That’s wonderful until he kills a family some night.