Make Lies and Deliberate Deception in Public Forums Illegal.

Abstract

Words possess immense power, shaping civilization, influencing beliefs, and even inciting conflict. This proposal examines the role of language in society, distinguishing between subjective and objective truth and exploring how misinformation fuels division. While free speech is a fundamental right, it is not absolute—existing laws already limit false advertising and perjury. However, deliberate deception in public forums remains largely unchecked, allowing lies to manipulate public perception and threaten democracy. This proposal would provide legal consequences for spreading falsehoods, ensuring that freedom of speech and the press are preserved while eliminating the destructive impact of misinformation.
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Words have power.

Words are used to transfer the knowledge required to train ordinary people to become the skilled professionals responsible for creating our cities, our technology, and the resulting civilization we know today. Without language we would still be living in the stone age.

Words start wars. Words have so much power they can be used to convince entire populations to ignore everything they believe about morality and justify murdering people they have never met. Words divide people into groups, us against them, rich vs poor, left vs right, etc. Dictators and others in positions of power control the beliefs of their citizens by controlling the words expressed in public forums like the news media.

If we assume that most people are fundamentally good, the divisions between us can be seen as nothing more than misunderstandings. Someone must believe something that isn’t true. But what is truth?

There are two kinds of truth — subjective and objective. A subjective truth is something you know to be true that you cannot prove to others. For instance, the specific thought or physical sensation you experience at any given moment is a subjective truth. An objective truth, on the other hand, is something that is true for everyone. Gravity is an example of an objective truth. If we throw a ball into the air we know it will fall back to the ground because of gravity. We may disagree on what gravity is or how it works, but we all agree that the ball will fall.

This definition proves that there is such a thing as the objective truth. Facts exist in the world which everyone can agree upon — if everyone can be made aware of the facts and is willing to accept them as truth. Some people will refuse to accept the truth because it conflicts with their preconceived interpretations about the world they live in. They confuse subjective truth with objective truth. We are all guilty of this to some extent because we place more value on information which supports our preconceptions without realizing we are doing so. Agreement on any subject can be achieved if we first agree to base our conclusions on the objective truth.

If everyone were in agreement there would be no wars, divisions or hostilities in the world. We all know how unlikely that is, but there are steps we can take to maximize our ability to reach agreement.

The first step is to prohibit lies and deliberate deception in public forums. If you want to tell your boss you are too sick to go into work because you want the day off, fine. That is between you and your boss. But no one should be allowed to yell, “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater if that isn’t true. We have laws prohibiting false advertising, and laws against making false statements in a court of law. There are already limits to free speech, but they simply don’t go far enough.

It is easy to see how much of the division and hostility in the world has been created by public figures spreading lies and disinformation. Anyone who lies or deliberately attempts to deceive the public should go to jail, regardless of their position in society. A jail term of one day for the first offense seems appropriate, then doubling for every further offense. The jail time would increase exponentially so chronic offenders could soon be out of the public eye for years at a time. It is difficult to believe that lying or spreading false information in a public forum has not always been illegal.

A free press is essential in any democracy. Journalists are necessary because they speak truth to power. They expose corruption and fraud, and are the public’s way of learning what is going on behind the scenes in government and business. One way to determine how much personal freedom exists in a country is by looking at how much freedom the press has. It quickly becomes obvious that the first thing repressive regimes do is limit freedom of speech and of the press. They do this in order to stifle any threat to their continued power. It also enables them to brainwash their citizens so they believe things which aren’t true, and to do things, like go to war, when the people would never do so if they were aware of the truth.

It is possible to maximize free speech and freedom of the press while at the same time recognizing that lies and deliberate deception are not included as part of those protections. When this distinction becomes law the benefits to society will be enormous.