Should troll farms and other forms of information warfare be protected under the First Amendment?
Should information warfare be regulated? Or is it speech that should be protected? What would thinkers like John Stuart Mill have thought about such things as Russia's Internet Research Agency? What about troll farms? What if some powerful entity with lots of money leverages massive compute clusters to use AI to mass-produce disinformation posts all over social media to shift public opinion or to cause confusion or political disengagement and such things? Should the efforts of entities that do such things be protected under the First Amendment?
It seems to me that our commitment to freedom of speech has become something of an Achilles' heel for the West that countries like Russia are actively exploiting. The Internet and social media especially have provided them a means to massively manipulate our people, and even to possibly capture our institutions in order to help them pursue their goals, part of which might arguably be to destroy us from within.
Would it violate our free speech laws and norms to try to begin to address this problem by making this illegal? Let's put aside the practical difficulties of enforcing a ban. I am mostly concerned here with the question of whether this should be considered the kind of speech that should be protected. Should we protect Russia's right to flood our information spaces with propaganda and disinformation?
Clearly, even such inventions as the printing press made it possible to disseminate propaganda more effectively and widely. And we protect the right of such publications to do their thing, even those clearly producing propaganda. Is there any line beyond which it becomes unacceptable and should no longer be considered a speech act, but rather the deployment of an information weapon?
Would you personally favor cracking down on information warfare of some kind?
It seems to me that our commitment to freedom of speech has become something of an Achilles' heel for the West that countries like Russia are actively exploiting. The Internet and social media especially have provided them a means to massively manipulate our people, and even to possibly capture our institutions in order to help them pursue their goals, part of which might arguably be to destroy us from within.
Would it violate our free speech laws and norms to try to begin to address this problem by making this illegal? Let's put aside the practical difficulties of enforcing a ban. I am mostly concerned here with the question of whether this should be considered the kind of speech that should be protected. Should we protect Russia's right to flood our information spaces with propaganda and disinformation?
Clearly, even such inventions as the printing press made it possible to disseminate propaganda more effectively and widely. And we protect the right of such publications to do their thing, even those clearly producing propaganda. Is there any line beyond which it becomes unacceptable and should no longer be considered a speech act, but rather the deployment of an information weapon?
Would you personally favor cracking down on information warfare of some kind?
Comments (23)
Messing with constitutional rights always results in a veil of legal tears, it would appear to the non US audience. As does the greater societal divisions that have arisen. Again speaking from a non US pov.
Perhaps an active counter information warfare on the enemy might be of more value? If applied with at least similar subtley. After all if a culture can be exported world wide....?
Just a suggestion
helpful smile
This is a good topic which I was looking into awhile back. See:
Quoting Chief Justice John Roberts | 2024 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary
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Quoting petrichor
Foreign actors who are not citizens do not have a right to free speech in the United States. As I understand it, what is more pertinent is the right of U.S. citizens to receive speech, namely the idea that censoring foreign speech could impede a right to receive speech. See:
(Granted, we could also talk about internal propaganda as opposed to foreign propaganda, which would generally be protected speech.)
Quoting petrichor
I agree.
I don't know where the Supreme Court TikTok case now stands, but that is a case in point.
People need to start wisening up to the whole charade. There's simply no substitute for that. As long as they stay ignorant, it's not a question of whether they're being manipulated, but who they're being manipulated by.
This is not true.
How do you distinguish between lies and mistakes?
The problem is people are mostly ignorant, having all they have due to unscrupulous reasons that fly in the face of the society and values they claim to represent all of a sudden. If you live truthfully, what could anyone say to disrupt or take anything from you short of a genuine lie or slander such as "Bob stole my cat". Okay. Where is the cat? But why would I go through the hassle of troubling Bob and violating his rights to search for said cat just because one person out of 8 billion made a claim? It's complicated, it really is.
But that said, just because a person is more educated than you and is successfully convincing (or you deem said person as a threat who will be able to convince) others of something that might result in some sort of monetary or "social" loss (especially one involving something one knows is fraudulent, immoral, or dangerous) doesn't change the act of telling the truth into "information warfare", nor does it criminalize the pursuit and proliferation of wisdom. That's absurd. True authoritarianism. Yet a fact of this world, historically, and perhaps even today, granted. As any philosopher can wholly attest to.
Sure, the moral consequence of being able to yell fire in a theater, for example, is a point of contention. Other examples, say telling a man to cross a bridge you know is dilapidated and will likely result in an injury, or perhaps telling someone who you know has a peanut allergy no such allergen is contained in something when it is, etc. I understand your point is beyond the simple legality of lying to someone, compounded with the "thought that counts" type of philosophy (consequentialism?) that basically would consider someone or something "immoral" if they truly believe what they did or said was the best course of action that in reality was dangerous or foolish and results in the death or injury of anyone who listened or was impacted. More of an intentional, widespread politically motivated operation that has a clear stated goal to "disinform" mass amounts of people (whatever that means)? Disinform from what? That fire is cold and water is hot? Just, silly things to cause random and isolated bubbles of confusion? No, of course not. It would be to chip away at the public opinion on a given leader or society for the specific purpose of causing social unrest, injury, or perhaps some sort of political/governmental change that benefits the person responsible.
I mean, let's be practical. What are some examples? Saying an elected leader is bad? Okay. Can they show evidence? If they can, wouldn't it be of benefit to truth itself and yes the person for them to know? Or saying Country A is bad, corrupt, and a threat to your home and house to sway voters (or soldiers) to take up arms to fight against Country A, whether or not any of those assumptions, claims, and insinuations are true?
It's like religion, somewhat. Or no, let's keep it simple. Let's say "proper food safety guidelines", specifically ensuring hamburgers reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees. The reasoning being it keeps people safe and thus is something not only positive but in this context vital to society, for obvious reasons. I don't think if I eat a hamburger that falls short of the guideline by a single degree and is only 164 degrees I'm going to be hospitalized or die, that's a bit silly. An opponent would logically be able to call "proper food safety guidelines", specifically the 165 degree requirement as misinformation, by pure logical fact, would he not? That doesn't mean said guidelines are not truthful and beneficial if not vital to human beings. There's wiggle room, assuredly.
The core of your question seems to be involved with, at least in some way, determining the intent of an action and declaring it as an organized, hostile political agenda simply because it "looks that way" or otherwise has a similar effect that someone who would do so to intentionally cause unrest or political difficulty or at an extreme a risk to national integrity itself, would do. Basically, if "the goals appear to line up" in an action or series of actions, whether or not there may have been any goals at all. At least, nothing you're aligned with or value as significant or important. Example: I just like chaos and loud noise so I tell everyone something that makes them act that way, nor caring any less about politics or life itself (including my own). That, to my knowledge, while it certainly makes one a less-than-noble person, is perfectly legal. I believe? But should it be, I suppose is your question?
And even setting that aside, how do you determine, in this legal context, if something someone stated is true or not? Say one person says 'Michael Jackson raped me', and another person says 'Michael Jackson did not rape you'. How do you figure out which one of them committed the crime of lying?
Interesting system.
If it's a danger to the public, it should be squashed.
What is "the public"? Just, random people and whoever happens to be around? A given municipality or country? The whole world and everyone living in it? That's complicated because countries with miilitarys are by definition a danger to "some public" or at least are liable to be. Maybe not here, but somewhere. Do we just arbitrarily imagine "as long as more than half the 'public' (still not defined) is benefited or harmed by a certain action or inaction " we can determine that a threat. Just because something short-term seems to or even actually does put someone in danger, doesn't mean it's occurrence doesn't prevent a much worse outcome. Like medication that has side effects, for example. If you look at it from a "oh this is a danger, you're hurting me" view because the medication that prevents a fatal infection might make you a little dizzy, tired, or nauseous, at the cost of saving your life, that's an easy point of contention or confusion. Sure we like to think we know all there is to know, but I'm sure you'll agree that kind of attitude and way of thinking has historically led to the start of tremendous amounts of wholesale human suffering. We don't (generally) do things for any other reason than we happened to have thought them to have been the best or wisest most productive or perhaps moral choice at the time. That doesn't mean the opposite is never true or rather never occurs despite our belief and best efforts otherwise.
Authoritarians and such like to use these "obvious truths" that naturally no one would object to, but in reality they can mean vastly different things from what the observer hears and believes to what the actual intent is. See, like that. Obviously, that last statement is true.
The first amendment does not just apply to true speech, it applies to all, or almost all, speech.
Quoting tim wood
More likely to be balance of probabilities unless there's no disputed facts ;)
Certainly, we already cover criminality when known lies result in some genuine loss etc.. So i can't see why we would preempt that by making "lying" a criminal offence other than perjury. That a lie is punishable by prison would tie up courts in defended hearings literally 100% of the time, at all levels and is an utterly ridiculous suggestion, legally speaking.
Are you going to put flat earthers in prison and make them pay steep fines?
Why do so called liberal democracies exist? To protect freedom. Already, we have a system of restrictions (laws) in place to maximize freedom. Already we recognize the necessity for restriction to allow for liberty.
If free choices are what we value as freedom, and if troll farms assault our freedom by profoundly fettering our free choices, they need to be regulated, even in a free and democratic society.
Yes, not only is this a contradiction (restrict free speech to protect liberty), it is a challenge on multiple levels. But we do it all the time--with physical restrictions, economic restrictions, social restrictions.
We create our own hierarchies of value everywhere. Regulating free speech at the root need not be any greater a violation of human rights than regulating the order in which customers are served in the bank. I dream of an ideal anarchism as much as anyone. But for things to function, there needs to be rules. Freedom in social venues needs to exist with some protections.