Today, Twitter has policies that aim to slow that spread. What former President Trump labeled “fake news” generally consisted of factual journalism that did not make him look good. But not all disinformation is a matter of consensus. We might all agree that certain social media posts constitute disinformation for example, messages by Russian government bots in 2016 that discouraged Americans from voting. That disinformation is a threat to free speech does not mean that governments should step in to ban it. If the search for reliable information yields nothing but a morass of comingled facts and falsehoods, people eventually stop searching. If platforms are riddled with propaganda and political falsehoods aimed to skew election results, prospects for genuine discourse on matters of public policy or local affairs evaporate. If audiences lose their grip on what is true and what is false, they can become primed to distrust everything and it becomes impossible to persuade people, even with the most compelling argument or evidence. When arenas for public discourse are flooded with disinformation, free speech begins to shed its value. If policies adopted in the name of free speech impair rather than advance those ends, they may not be speech-friendly. Subsequent thinkers and Supreme Court opinions have identified other virtues of free speech: as a societal safety valve that helps prevent bottled up frustrations from erupting into violence as a catalyst for social, scientific and economic progress and as a prerequisite for vindicating other individual liberties. Going back to its origins in ancient Greece, free speech has been about more than the right to have your say, but also the right to persuade, to listen and be heard, to deliberate with fellow citizens, to seek and find the truth in democratic self-government. Free speech is protected in the Bill of Rights and in global instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because it has long been recognized as necessary to create open and democratic societies. It’s not just because people like to be able to spout their opinions or because the founders thought it was important. How can disinformation threaten free speech if it is a form of free speech? To answer that question, we need to recall why we protect free speech in the first place. If Musk is serious about fostering open discourse, he needs to account for the dangers that disinformation poses to expression as he takes over one of the world’s most influential online platforms. This would be a mistake, and not just because disinformation has fueled a crisis of faith in democracy and impeded pandemic response at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.ĭisinformation, though largely protected by the 1st Amendment against government control, can also imperil free speech itself. It is this understanding of the central importance and specific roles of free speech in a university that underlies the detailed procedures of the University of Oxford.As he prepares to take over Twitter, Elon Musk has said that, in the name of upholding free speech, he will dial back safeguards on the platform that are there to protect against disinformation. With appropriate regulation of the time, place and manner of events, neither speakers nor listeners should have any reasonable grounds to feel intimidated or censored. As an integral part of this commitment to freedom of expression, we will take steps to ensure that all such exchanges happen peacefully. Wherever possible, they should also be exposed to evidence, questioning and argument. But, within the bounds set by law, all voices or views which any member of our community considers relevant should be given the chance of a hearing. A university values expertise and intellectual achievement as well as openness. The University must therefore foster freedom of expression within a framework of robust civility. Inevitably, this will mean that members of the University are confronted with views that some find unsettling, extreme or offensive. Recognising the vital importance of free expression for the life of the mind, a university may make rules concerning the conduct of debate but should never prevent speech that is lawful. It allows students, teachers and researchers to become better acquainted with the variety of beliefs, theories and opinions in the world.
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