Originally published at: 2020 Conspiracy Theorists Are Being Held Accountable, But Damage They’ve Done Remains - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Late last month, right-wing broadcaster Salem Media Group announced that it would stop distributing 2020 election conspiracy film “2,000 Mules,” part of an effort to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by a Georgia man that the supposed documentary wrongly accused of voter fraud. The company posted a statement to its website, apologizing to the man…
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Testing, testing. Is this thing on?
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No. I mean yes.
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A quantum paradox.
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Hello? Can anybody hear me?
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Allowing misinformation about elections to persist poses a grave threat to national security (c.f. January 6).
If we can criminalize shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre when there is no fire, we can place restrictions on this kind of thing, too.
The fact that there are some unscrupulous assholes who have set up businesses selling Fire Megaphones outside the theatre is no justification for protecting dangerous speech.
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Yes. And no.
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It’s a business model so the grift will continue as long as profits do but, honestly, it does make one rather long for a return to public flogging. Don’t know how much it would improve deterrence but there would at least be some direct satisfaction to it (imagining asshats like Desouza or Alex Jones in the stocks could kick the serotonin levels up a notch particularly if rotten veggies were available for pelting)
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Sorry, I can only read you.
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crickets
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“It’s not clear to me that these sporadic cases will be enough to dissuade others from participating in the next wave of misinformation.”
If only there was a department or some other government agency tasked with enforcing the Justice and laws of our country.
Or if we held even one of the branches on Congress, say the Senate, where we could hold public hearings and shed light on such things.
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Dare I say the flogging should be done on the steps of the Capitol?
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Bring back the guillotine? JK, I am morally opposed to the death penalty.
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Near-future “history” book:
“At the time, they were ridiculed on websites operated by Demonrats infected with the Woke Mind Virus. In the coming years, however, it would be rightly known as a ‘Backyard Gathering of the Patriots,’ repeated thousands of times across this Great Homeland we now call Amerikkka.”
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Nothing celebrates being in the Great Outdoors quite like a big screen TV especially one broadcasting TDICFFG texting to his minions
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There are apparently 13 states with criminal defamation/libel laws where someone can be jailed for knowingly spreading false defamatory information. My first amendment side says this isn’t really a good idea, but the civil judgements clearly aren’t working.
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If only Faux News would run spots about these grifters being held accountable.
Oh, wait, Faux News paid a quarter of a billion dollars for pushing the grifters’ lies. At least we don’t have to see or hear about Tucker Carlson anymore
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An extra challenge to worry about is that the GOP is actively preparing to steal the 2025 election (and all future elections), so we really can’t afford to shut down all remedies.
This is a pattern that comes from Koch and from Bannon: cry “wolf” until society learns to tune out those warnings, then release a horde of genetically-engineered super-wolves.
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Yeah, something odd is going on.
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