![]() ![]() Some people say what they know to be false. Falsehoods are a broad category of which lies are a mere part. Sunstein presents a framework that builds on Mill’s ‘harm principle.’ He is careful to state that “…many false statements are not lies people who make or spread them sincerely believe them to be true. Sometimes punishment or censorship actually fuel more falsehoods.īut there are limitations to the kind of falsehoods a society should tolerate. According to Sunstein the best response to falsehoods is usually to correct them rather than to punish or censor them. If you want to know what people really think and not what they pretend to think, you must make allowance for falsehood. Allowing falsehood may sometimes lead to the discovery of new truths eventually. Also, if falsehood is censored, then paradoxically, truth would be threatened to some extent because many people would fear being censored for saying what they believe is true. ![]() Sunstein believes that when falsehoods (part of free speech) are censored there would be a growing tendency for Government to censor any speech it does not like. He believes that both truth and falsehood play important roles in society. Sunstein’s book focuses on misinformation (falsehoods). He sides with John Stuart Mill and believes that free speech should be protected as much as possible for many reasons. One such upgrade is proposed by the Harvard University professor Cass Sunstein in his new book ‘Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception.’ Sunstein is the most cited legal scholar in America today. The ‘harm principle’ is more than 150 years old and it needs an upgrade for the social media age. Consider the example of a violent movie: if a man commits violence and replicates the kind of murder he watched in movie, is the producer of the movie or the actor or screenwriter or the investors who bankrolled the movie guilty? Strictly speaking, the person who acts upon hearing inciting speech is the guilty one because she has the freedom to act after hearing the inciting speech or ignore it. The difficult question now is this: is inciting speech harmful? A strictly libertarian answer would be that until harm is directly attempted it is not. According to Mill, the only reason that permits interference with another person’s liberty is to prevent harm to others. Mill proposed that no Government or person should interfere and prevent another person’s liberty to do or say anything. One universal principle is the ‘harm principle’ proposed by the British thinker John Stuart Mill in his 1859 essay titled ‘On Liberty.’Ĭan a Government legislate into law what is free speech and what is not? I do not think a Government should have such power and neither should a social media platform What Governments and social media platforms can do is follow universal principles regarding free speech and its limits. Can a Government legislate into law what is free speech and what is not? I do not think a Government should have such power and neither should a social media platform. ![]()
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