There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.
You're referencing defamation law and contract law. In the case of defamation, you can't be defamed if what the person said is true. And in case of contract law or fraud, lies impact the integrity of a transaction.
In the US, you can lie as much as you want with general speech.
Why do you think this? The WP article is about a general exception to the constitutional right to freedom of speech, though it is not absolute. It happens to mention some defamation and contract precedent, but if you read it, it’s quite clear the exception is broader than those two cases and not limited to defamation and contracts. It even gives several other categorical examples (such as incitement and slander), so you seem to have gotten the wrong idea.
> In the US, you can lie as much as you want with general speech.
As a summary of the issue, this is mostly false and rather misleading. It’s certainly bad advice in any case. ;) You can choose to lie a lot and you might not get in trouble, but if you knowingly lie about things that materially affect other people, you’re probably not protected in the free speech sense. However the only way to be sure is to go to court, and most people who lie don’t end up in court.
> False statements of fact are not protected under free speech.
Which does not agree with the citation.
There are no rights that are absolute. You can have a right of free speech and still not be allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.
Additionally, being an expert comes with some responsibility. You are given trust due to your station, abusing that trust should be punished.
For instance lets say CDC recommends people to wash their hands with water/sanitizer. There is a group of experts who question the efficacy of it. These experts should not be punished. Least of by layman/politicians/lawmakers/noobs who have no clue about the subject matter.
I understand what you're getting at, but I think you greatly underestimate the amount of incorrect assertions that need to happen before a sensible consensus is reached. Historically, in the body of science, we're wrong something like 99% of the time until someone gets it right.
Also, your comment is a straw man argument. The law isn't going to chastise people questioning existing mainstream views, only the ones spouting horribly incorrect information. Noone is saying it will do that, other than you and other commenters who didnt read the article.
Last, are you really questioning the benefit of washing our hands?
It's dishonest to call his position a strawman then take a strawman position that doesn't have bearing on the rest of your statement.
Along with that, this law was just passed. We don't yet know what it will and won't be used for. You're arguing about what it should and shouldn't be used for.
They should not be punished if they are honestly wrong and are attempting to find the truth (or of course if they're actually right).
They should be punished if they are actively spreading disinformation, meaning they know or should know that it's incorrect.
We currently have a _lot_ of people spreading disinformation because it pads their pocketbook.
If you want an analogy for when it's correct to place restrictions on speech this one is a very poor choice due to it's historical context.
I am truly surprised how frequently this old gem gets trotted out as if there might be someone who is unaware of it.
I am pretty sure most kids (at least where I grew up) get taught about this in 5th or 6th grade Civics or Social Studies classes.
And I bet some of them can even recall that it was Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said it -- but probably just because that guy had a really cool name.
It's just one example of free speech not being absolute. Violent threats, defamatory statements, incitement to riot are a few other examples of non-protected speech.
“Fire in a theatre” is a great example of using a reasonable sounding analogy to support behaviour (prosecuting anti-war campaigners) that today we judge very poorly.
Not to mention even in light of the historical context, one should strongly support the free speech rights of anti-war protestors, but inciting panic in a crowded space ('fire' in a crowded theater) isn't the correct way to go about it.
I think it stands as a good example of how restrictions on certain kinds of speech that look very reasonable in a moment of crisis can in turn be judged very poorly in the long term.
I don't personally know where I stand on the free speech issue, I just want people to stop using this stupid "fire in a crowded theatre" analogy.
Or apparently anti-war Yiddish folks distributing flyers.