We all know that free speech has limits like yelling crowded in a crowded theater, making threats of bodily harm, extortion, defamation etc. Tucker Carlson said last Wednesday night -- “Between late December of 2020 and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccine in the United States … The actual number is almost certainly higher.”

Carlson is jumping to absurd conclusions with data taken from VAERS where anyone can self report anything to the CDC with no adjustment for reasonable cause and correlation. It’s akin to saying that 3362 people died last year within 48 hours of taking a shower. The problem with discussing his misinformation as it applies specifically to COVID is that we all know that the death rate from COVID is extremely low and is far more likely to have serious effects on a small subset of the general population (the elderly, overweight etc). But what if we were in a more serious pandemic or public health crisis that had much higher fatality rates... Should he be allowed to utter disinformation about safe vaccines especially if they were the path to herd immunity and overall general well being for the country?

I fully acknowledge that historically governments that overreach and restrict speech usually end up as authoritarian, marxist type states. But where do we draw the line? Our society has advanced technologically to a point where a single person or group can have mass swaths of influence over others because of the way information is delivered. And you can extrapolate outward from there if all disinformation is allowed to run unchecked because of "freedom of speech". A "news outlet" knowingly lies about an assassination causing a violent uprising. Or the use of deep fake videos to manipulate the words of a high ranking government official.

If Tucker Carlson was shilling some herbal “health” pill that ended up killing people his speech would not be protected if he knowingly continue to promote that pill. So what are the boundaries?