America has a first amendment problem.

[hay rick]

Last edited Fri Aug 1, 2025, 02:00 PM - Edit history (1)

First amendment absolutists have agreed that you can't shout "fire!" when there is no fire in a crowded movie theater, but fall back on the theory that deliberate lies will be exposed when they encounter truth in a debate. In the current internet/social media/podcast/cable news age, a huge number of people never leave their comfortable media spaces and are not exposed to meaningful debate. Last summer I posted about malign TikTok content designed to misinform low-engagement voters: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219019254

Since Trump's election the same tactics are being used to sell his agenda. Lying has been professionalized and is being used to mold public opinion, and ultimately, the acceptance of authoritarianism. One example here: https://www.tiktok.com/@alltheworldlythings/video/7526748418228653343

The video starts with a shot of a man sitting on a couch complaining that "Trump has cut my food stamps from 2800 dollars down to 300 and fifty dollars." The man says he just got a letter informing him of the cut. He says he has 5 kids and complains that he doesn't want to work 50 or 60 hours to support his kids. He wants to stay home and be a father to them. He also says he voted for Trump and will leave the country if he gets elected again.

This is clearly fictional and designed to provoke anger and reinforce support for Trump and SNAP cuts. In fact, the maximum benefit for the family size the man describes is half or less of the amount he claims, depending on the state. The use of fake numbers is particularly chilling as it gives people outrageous numbers to throw around in discussions in which others don't have immediate access to valid numbers.

This kind of thing is being done on scale and is undermining the public's ability to tell truth from fiction.

[tritsofme]

1. Authoritarians are the only ones who have a problem with the First Amendment.

[hay rick]

2. Nonsense.

Their lies are protected by the first amendment and they have the resources to spread them far and wide. Saying this is a self-correcting problem is easy but I don't think that's true. We can eat popcorn, watch our democracy go away and complain that wasn't supposed to happen afterward.

I don't have a solution but we need to talk about it and find a way to counteract these attacks on the truth and on democracy. I believe that this kind of widespread misinformation and disinformation had a decisive effect in 2024 with lies motivating low information voters to vote for Trump and/or not vote for Harris.

[Jedi Guy]

3. The answer to "bad speech" is good speech, not the restriction of speech.

And insofar as First Amendment law is concerned, the "fire in a crowded theater" never held legal weight whatsoever and is a poor example of the guardrails that restrict freedom of speech in America. The Brandenburg Test is the current accepted set of guidelines to determine whether speech falls foul of the First Amendment.

In any case, confirmation bias is a simple fact of human nature. We readily accept things that confirm what we already believe or want to believe, and we reject anything that clashes with those beliefs. You're correct that most people exist in a comfortable bubble where their assumptions and beliefs are never challenged. This is a general societal problem and not one that afflicts just one side of the political aisle.

The only way to combat the rising tide of bullshit is to get out there in the trenches and have the debate. Get our message out there, even if it means getting into an ideological brawl. When we disengage out of frustration, all we're doing is ceding the battlefield to the enemy and allowing them to claim an unearned victory.

Restricting and punishing speech is the tool of tyrants and has been throughout history. I don't know if this particular form of societal herpes can be cured, but I know for damn sure that embracing tyranny of thought isn't how to go about it. Tyrion Lannister had it right when he said that tearing out someone's tongue doesn't prove them a liar, it only proves that you're afraid of what they might say.

[hay rick]

5. I am not advocating for changes to the First Amendment or for taking cases to court based on First Amendment violations.

First Amendment protections create vulnerabilities and those vulnerabilities are being exploited. Those vulnerabilities and abuses have metastasized over the last decade. I do not say that lies are not protected speech. I am saying that the lies are now an epidemic and we have to adjust to that reality as a matter of self-defense.

Once upon a time, people went to a library or an encyclopedia to get mostly reliable, curated information on a subject and we lived in a largely shared reality. That shared reality is dissolving in front of our eyes now. Maybe we need a new dewey decimal system appropriate for our age.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. "First amendment absolutists have agreed that you can't shout 'fire!' when there is no fire in a crowded movie theater"

You can, actually, and any prosecution that results from reaction to the shouting are not First Amendment cases.

[appmanga]

6. The First Amendment restricts the government...

...from quelling speech it doesn't like. It has nothing to do with private companies like Tik Tok or the corporation you work for. The AI generated slop/glurge that features real life public figures are part of this push of disinformation, and it goes hat-in-hand with the existence of a leader and an administration that incessantly lies. How can there be consensus when the average person can't discern what's true and what's not?

This is a continuum of a campaign started by the right-wing as far back as Reagan. This has involved the use of certain words to describe the left and its members, and went forward to use disinformation tactics like Gish-gallop and false equivalency when it's inconvertibly shown the speaker is lying (i.e. "Both parties do it&quot .

We're now in a situation where the left and the right are being bombarded with conspiracy theories and AI slop, and the falsehoods are being embraced by huge numbers by those on each side. This is just another way in which this country is in incredible danger, and the self-interest of the politicians, tech and media companies, and even the individuals who somehow profit in the smallest ways from this will do nothing to shut this stuff down.

[hay rick]

8. Sadly, the incentives favor hate speech.

Social media companies get their dollars from engagement- clicks and views- not from fact-checking. They want your attention and they want you to come back for more. In the specific case of Tik Tok, they know that benefiting Trump is a ticket for keeping and expanding their American business.

[Mosby]

7. The counterspeech doctrine lacks scientific evidence

Since the legacy media adopted engagement farming and promotes click-bait, consumers of news have virtually no one to rely on that's reasonably credible.

There is no better recent example than Gaza "reporting". The AP keeps violating their own stylebook or whatever it's called thes days.