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Comment by deepsun | Hacker News Reader

What if we start prosecuting for knowingly spreading misinformation? It already works, but only in licensed areas like healthcare and legal advice (although I think we could do more on health advice side). We could make more areas like that.

And fines to be small, similar to copyrighted media content sharing -- those who did initial leak would get large fines, those who just re-shared -- slap on the hand.

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Medical history, even recent, is full of cases where the accepted truth turned out to be false and those who spoke out against it to have the truth be known would have been persecuted by the believers in the incumbent truth.

My favorite example being germ theory [1]. Granted, he went over the top (claiming all infant mortality was from cadaverous particles) a bit like some who claim Covid was a lab-leak from a Chinese bio-weapon; if you just stop at the lab-leak part you have a decent claim, the bio-weapon is what tanks your argument.

But it's not like doctors started washing their hands despite his evidence of mortality dropping from 18% to 2%.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease#Ignaz_S...

Meh. Based on the way the CIA and the intelligence apparatus of the country reacted, they probably though it was a bioweapon bubonic plague level event. Of course, it wasn't, and it became quite apparent very fast, but it was an election year, so a lot of Democrats went on to ignore basic facts as misinformation.

Sorry but your agument is a perfect example of Asimov's "spherical earth fallacy" [1]:

> My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

I.e. there's no medical protocol that tells doctor to prescribe unproven "accepted truth", at least not in important areas. It's way different to tell someone to ingest dangerous chemical compounds that were not even designed for medical purposes.

[1] https://mvellend.recherche.usherbrooke.ca/Asimov_anglosabote...

Fox News paid $800 million for telling their lies about the 2020 election and the Newsmax trial for the same starts next month. Alex Jones is going through bankruptcy. When it gets egregious enough, there are consequences.

Fox News only had to pay Dominion because Dominion lost customers. I think the proposed fines are for the societal harm of deceptive "news," not just provable financial harm.

>Alex Jones is going through bankruptcy. When it gets egregious enough, there are consequences.

Yeah, that was really egregious and caused real harm to a lot of people. But again, that lawsuit only succeeded because a group of victims claimed harm. I imagine the previous poster intended for the "deceptive news" laws to be like pollution laws, where prosecutors just need to prove the act but don't need victims.

What lies?

I believe they're referring to the scandal regarding their coverage of Dominion voting machines.

Yeah with Fox News it’s sometimes difficult to know which lies people are referring to, specifically.

Don't I know this. I've been stuck around a TV with fox news for 2 weeks now(even had the great displeasure of being present the whole time while the former guy gave a presser yesterday), and it's like watching bizzaro world where they try to blatantly push your emotional buttons, it is exhausting, deeply sad, and yet funny at the same time because to me, it exposed the utter inanity of running a superpower nation like this. There is no way a major party should find themselves in thrall to a single liar, yet here we are.

> What if we start prosecuting for knowingly spreading misinformation?

What’s concerning about this approach is who gets to determine what is and is not misinformation. Having that power is a great way to silence those who don’t agree with you.

"Knowingly" is the tricky part. I could only see this as allowing a government approved set of authorities to push mis/dis/mal-information while suppressing any opposition: "Government/Coorporation/Industry says this is true, so it is all that can be reported, without question.", as has happened again and again within the big 6 [1]. How could opposition of the accepted be reported?

I think it would advance the death of the freedom of the press [2], disallowing truths that go agains the governing bodies, more than anything.

[1] https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own...

[2] https://www.cima.ned.org/publication/chilling-legislation/

Good idea, I nominate you to decide what is truth and what are lies in this world, and severely punish those who spread harmful ideas.

But instead of fining them, I think it would be more productive as a punishment to send these people to into rehabilitation camps in more remote regions of the country, where they could pay their fine by working community service for a few years.

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