Thought-provoking piece today from @GeorgeMonbiot on how our right to free speech & our right to life collide when influential pundits spread Covid lies.

We regulate speech around other health claims. Would temporary bans on Covid lies save lives?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/27/covid-lies-cost-lives-right-clamp-down-misinformation

One complicating factor is how such a ban in a relatively free country like the UK would be used by leaders in more authoritarian countries to justify their crackdowns on dissent generally. As in, "We're just doing what the UK is doing."

Of course, authoritarians don't exactly need foreign role models. Many are going in that direction already, using the pandemic to clamp down on free speech. https://bit.ly/3sWXe1c 

A law brought in last year by Hungary's authoritarian regime under the cover of Covid, for example, allows for criminal penalties of up to 5 years in prison for publishing vaguely defined “false” or “distorted” facts. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/23/hungarys-orban-uses-pandemic-seize-unlimited-power

This has had a chilling effect on speech:

"The most obvious effect was the wariness of the potential sources – journalists could hardly find sources in the health care system or education system who were willing to talk."
- Agnes Urban, Mertek Media Monitor think-tank, Hungary

Part of the question is, do you trust this UK government to regulate speech to save lives and not abuse the law for its own political interests?

What if they used it to block reporting like this?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html

Still, while recognising this danger, Monbiot makes a fair point...

Is part of the way to square this circle to take into account power & responsibility? There's no practical way to stop, for example, every person with 10 followers on twitter spreading lies about Covid. But focus on top pundits & others with real reach instead?

Which brings me back to this thread... (including the comment by @iverna1 on the importance of privacy laws & how "algorithms driving viral disinformation are being fed with too much our personal information.") https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1352609553897107466

A shocking reminder here that this is not some stale, academic debate.

Misinformation can be deadly.
https://twitter.com/DrDomPimenta/status/1354357473973579776