politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
To me honestly it's quite simple: like any other personal right, my "freedom of speech" ends where other people's rights begin. If what I'm saying both is patently untrue and deals a net harm for society - be it because of what I'm saying it or because of how I'm saying it, then it can't be protected. It would be backwards for the purpose of a State if it was.
So for your example of misinformation that we should punish people for, it's quite patent-as-untrue stuff that leads to harm, such as "drinking bleach will immunize you from Covid!" (leads people to self-harm), or "it's because of the niggas / gays / asians / anything non-Christian living in your neighbourhood" (leads people to cause harm to others). Something like "Covid doesn't exist", while patently untrue, does not invite harm in any way that I see as proportionally punishable (but for comparison "let's organize to evade vaccinations because Covid doesn't exist" does invite harm to others, so it should be punishable).
Then again this all assumes it's only about government prosecution. XKCD "show the door" applies here for any private party who feels they are given harm by some nutjob announcing that Covid doesn't exist and trying to convince my grandma to drink bleach over Instagram, and there's no "but muh freedom of peach" complain to take about that.