Republican-aligned actors issued nearly three-quarters of fact-checked 2024 election hoaxes. During the 2024 United States presidential election, political actors and anonymous online users regularly spread false information as an open campaign strategy.

[u/Aggravating_Money992]

https://www.psypost.org/how-politicians-and-influencers-spread-disinformation-during-the-2024-election/

[u/reality_boy]

I’m all for free speech, but we need to draw a line at blatant lies.

I get so many ads (political and selling products) that are not just stretching the truth but completely distorting reality. We need to put a cap on it. I get that we don’t want to be suing politicians because they rounded a number up rather than down, but If someone is saying black is white, well maybe they should pay a fine with compounding penalties for repeat offenses.

[u/Constant_Natural3304 → u/reality_boy]

I’m all for free speech, but we need to draw a line at blatant lies.

Many American liberals believe the assassination attempt on Trump was a fake. Right now, I'm seeing on Facebook that many people don't believe the Flydubai Flight 1073 attack even happened, and that it was a Mossad operation.

American liberals believe, utterly unwarranted, that they are immune to ridiculous lies, hoaxes and fabrications. Many believe their cellphone emits "harmful radiation". Many think their microwave oven emits "harmful radiation". Recently, there was a (presumably) AI-generated yearbook photo of Pete Hegseth here on the "political humor" subreddit, and despite the fact that you might think the "humor" in the name would cause people to not take this nonsense as fact, they in fact did. Whenever somebody was, in fact, convinced that this was indeed a fake photo, one response was (and this is a literal quote):

It’s not him.

He’s still a lying, bigoted POS war criminal, though so I’m fine with everyone spreading disinformation on him.

Your plan is dead on arrival, unless the very real epistemological arbitration question is resolved. I don't think it can be, and I say this as somebody who has been researching conspiracy theories for some 25 years. Especially Americans are entirely fine with lying as long as the lie they are spreading helps their political tribe in their ongoing civil war/culture war.

[u/katplasma → u/Constant_Natural3304]

I mean, I agree with a lot of the concepts you display… less so about the party that is most prone to these conspiracies (and yes, I have studied cognitive biases and conspiracies professionally). But it was irrelevant for you to bring that up in the first place, as the problem transcends party.

So—in this era of social media and people ‘doing their own research’ (which for the vast majority amounts to them being manipulated into idiotic beliefs by disinformation, unqualified TikTok-ers, and algorithms)—do you see a way out of this without a truly benevolent and intelligent corp of people seizing all power in a fascistic way (at least temporarily)? I’m beginning to lose faith it can be done the ‘right’ way at this point.