People have always spread false information. But now that it spreads so easily and quickly online, the stakes seem higher than ever. Just look at all the damage done by false claims about the COVID vaccines and the 2020 election.
Should the US government clamp down on misinformation by placing new restrictions on free speech — as the European Union has done? According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, American sensibilities have shifted between 2018 and today. The survey found that more Americans now would like to see the government limit the publication of false claims “even if it limits freedom of information.”
Legal scholar Jeff Kosseff thinks a government crackdown on misinformation is a very bad idea. In his new book, “Liar in a Crowded Theater: Freedom of Speech in a World of Misinformation,” he makes the case that the courts have improved our country by gradually strengthening legal protections for false speech — a principle that should hold even though new technologies are changing how information looks, is created, and flows.
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Kosseff has long been defending free speech. In “The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet” (2019), he explained the benefits of the free speech protections offered in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies from being liable for misinformation shared on their platforms. And he contended that anonymous...
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