Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’
The world would, without a doubt, be a better place if politicians, news organizations, influencers&#x2F;celebrities, etc. did not lie to the masses.<p>It would also likely be a much quieter place, in that some of these entities would not be able to produce so much content due to the need to corroborate before posting, printing or opening their mouths.  Some would be silent, because a lot of these people are truly ignorant about a wide range of subjects and are in the business of disseminating outrage for clicks and eyeballs rather than informing their audience.<p>In the US in particular, freedom of speech and freedom of the press have devolved into being able to go as far as mounting massive campaigns, based on lies, used to destroy people.  This has happened to people from all walks of life, from politicians to random people targeted by the mobs.  The media, politicians and people with enough followers on social media have done this; examples abound.<p>This is objectively wrong.<p>I cannot imagine anyone with a modicum of decency and moral standards actually believing it is OK to have these elements in society behave in such ways.  This is objectively detrimental for society.<p>Of course, the difficulties come in when we try to define truth.  In some cases there is no such thing as an absolute truth.  Do we not speak about such matters?  Or do we require a strong disclaimer to be issued with as much visibility and impact as the statements being made?  De we add an &quot;open source&quot; requirement for news organizations?  In other words, they would be legally required to publish the research and sources used in order to confirm the veracity of a story.  Is that sensible?  I don&#x27;t know.<p>In the US politicians are legally protected when they lie to the masses.  A politician can say anything they want about the economy, crime, education, war and peace and their opponents, lie about all of it and have no legal exposure to the consequences of such lies.  A politician can say that a proposed bill is about X when, in reality, it is about Y.  This, again, is objectively wrong, and yet we don&#x27;t seem interested in doing anything about it.<p>It goes without saying that social media is a deep dark hole full of lies and manipulative content.  Again, objectively terrible for society.<p>Sadly, fixing this problem is nearly impossible.  As easy as it might be to state what kinds of behaviors are objectively wrong, designing an equitable solution that protects the important aspects of free speech isn&#x27;t as easy as it may sound.<p>When it comes to the press, it is my opinion that they should not be allowed to print anything that they have not confirmed to be truthful within a reasonable margin of error.  As an example everyone would be familiar with, if a news organization is going to, day after day, claim that the US president is a foreign agent, they would have to be able to corroborate this with solid evidence and research or suffer severe consequences.  If they are going to point to an individual and claim them to be racist or a member of a cult, etc., same thing.<p>There ought to be a reasonable threshold --which can be somewhat fuzzy-- for mass media organizations to engage in some of the carpet bombing campaigns that have become all too familiar these days.  The latest one is against Tulsi Gabbard, who, after announcing she is leaving her political party, is now the target of all manner of attacks from multiple angles, including such things as saying she is a member of a cult.  I use this example because it is very fresh, quite literally the last few days.<p>However one might feel about her and her political views, here&#x27;s what reveals this event as a politically-motivated smear campaign:  If the things being said about her were true and the motivation behind the dissemination was an honest effort to inform the public, these stories would have been newsworthy <i>before</i> she left her political party.  If she is, in fact, a member of a cult, this would have been important for voters to know two years ago.  Yet, that&#x27;s not the case.  The attacks are politically motivated and likely lies and fabrications.  They are deployed en-masse when a person goes from being silent or a member of the club to being viewed as a political enemy.  That, in a nutshell, is what&#x27;s wrong.  These things are legally-protected smear and destruction campaign.  They should not be allowed by law.  Which is, of course, easier said than done.