| We had something that largely worked, the fairness doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine Was removed in 1985. That wasn't perfect but was considerably better than what we have now. It seems to be a 'new' idea that there isn't really objective truth - it's all just opinions. Clearly that isn't the case many things are knowable and provable. Also there are countries, organizations and individuals who are operating in bad faith. That they are knowingly spreading often fairly easily disprovable lies. If they do so they should be sue-able. There should be the options to constrain them legally by the government through due process. Also we have this odd situation where 'news' often doesn't mean 'news' it's opinion pieces presented in the style of 'news'. That's not confusing by accident. Oh and we have a traditional media that has it's business model disrupted where most of the (costly) analysis originated, to tech media company's who claim to just be a 'conduit' even though they manipulate what you see via black box algorithms. And they take no responsibility for spreading lies and misinformation. Their economics are around clicks/attention. They don't pay for investigative reporting. They attention economy gets really fired up with outrage clicks. Bottom line is there should be significant repercussions for knowingly spreading lies and disinformation. |
It would be a big -- and likely unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds -- stretch to bring the doctrine back and expand it to print or online media.