Comment by mmooss
2 hours ago
> The only threshold should be calls for violence or murder.
There are other universal exceptions which I'm guessing you are forgetting:
* Slander
* Fraud
* Treason (actual treason - e.g., passing info
to the enemy in a war for survival)
What about disinformation that causes serious harm? What if I tell people that snickerdoodles prevent shellfish allergies, and they try it and some die?
Unfortunately, real life always has grey areas; no simple algorithm can address it.
"disinformation" is problematic if it presupposes an arbiter of truth. We've seen time and again that people and organizations in such positions will abuse them rather than uphold their principles.
At the end of the day, you either engage with the speech and argue against the idea, or you appeal to authority and hope it is worthy of your trust. Personally, I'm a little too jaded for that.
That's not reality: Every court case has to decide on truth. That's why we have laws, court procedure (including rules of evidence), and judges and juries. Juries specifically are tasked with deciding the facts of the case. Fraud and slander depend on determinations of truth.
It's not always simple; it's not always perfect; but practically we do it all the time as a matter of course. Everyone makes decisions like that every day; every authority makes those decisions - managers at work, politicians in hearings; the public does it listening to political messages, parents do it listening to teenagers explaining where they were all night ...