[40amxn40]

I was talking about speech in the context of exchanging ideas, but you bring up a very good point. In an ideal world, lying would only damage the reputation of the lier.

One indicator of the quality (or lack thereof) of a society is how easy is to damage one's reputation without evidence. That's why the whole "Believe women" movement is complete and utter bullshit.

This problem has always existed, and the social standing of person A and the social standing of person B typically determined the outcome. Platforms such as Twitter where an unfounded claim can be spread so rapidly and to such a vast number of people are also a modern thing. There's no easy answer, but having the state as arbiter of truth is never the solution.