Originally Posted by
BartHanson
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?
The free market should dictate whether someone stays on the air. If people want to watch Tucker, and a broadcast platform wants to carry him, then he should be able to be heard.
If he spreads misinformation, that same free speech and accessibility to the masses can be used to call him out.
Misinformation is always a side effect of free speech. There is no such thing as a perfect world where you have free speech only for those telling the truth, and suppression of untruths. Free speech doesn't work that way, especially since the concepts of "truth" and "misinformation" are often manipulated for poltiical reasons. A good example was the suppressed Hunter Biden story, which at this point looks like it was mostly true, yet big social media (and the mainstream media) conspired to suppress the story.
Anything gained by suppressing misinformation is unfortunately countered by a much greater loss of freedom, due to other censorship made under false pretenses. Therefore, it was discovered long before we were born that free speech can only truly exist if everyone is allowed a platform, even if some of that speech ends up being untrue or causing problems.
The "fire in a crowded theater" example doesn't apply here, because that doesn't apply to ideology. There is no ideology there -- only a desire to cause harm based upon intentionally false information. Here you're asking for a political analyst to be censored because he makes untrue statements.
Question for you, Bart: Chris Cuomo and others encouraged the summer rioting, which caused mass destruction and killed people. Should they be taken off the air?