The push for regulating misinformation is getting stronger, mostly pushed from the left. Controlling speech in this way isn’t just a blatant violation of the First Amendment, it enables the very government overreach the First Amendment was designed to prevent.
This article will go over how regulating ‘misinformation’ has become a leftist tool for controlling speech, look at real world examples, and explain the conservative argument against regulation.
In This Argument…
- Why the modern left has pushed for regulation of misinformation under the guise of safety
- How the First Amendment includes misinformation and the conservative argument for why it is necessary that speech is not controlled
- Examples of regulating misinformation, both in history and in the modern day
Table of Contents
What Is Misinformation?
One of the modern political debates is about how to deal with misinformation. There are two main sides, one in favor of regulating it and one against regulation. The political left almost always is the side who favors regulation, but it’s important to first understand what they want to regulate.
Misinformation is often used as a blanket term for all fake news, but there are actually two types of words that people use: ‘Misinformation’ and ‘disinformation.’
Misinformation is the unintentional spreading of fake news or inaccurate information.
Disinformation is the intentional spreading of fake news or inaccurate information, intending to deceive.
Now at first thought, it’s easy to think, “yes, let’s regulate misinformation and disinformation, why would I want that in my society?” The truth is that unless you intend to trick, no one wants it in their society. But regulating it is worse than having it. Let’s go over why.
The Conservative Argument Against Controlling Speech
While misinformation and disinformation can be dangerous and can be used for propaganda, controlling it is more dangerous. Thank God the Founders wrote the First Amendment, but many left-wing activists push to infringe it on the basis that misinformation and disinformation is harmful.
In the Dogood Papers in 1722, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote, “In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech; a thing terrible to publick traytors.” Franklin, at the age of 16, is highlighting that after controlling speech comes tyranny.
Like the Second Amendment, the First Amendment was created to prevent a tyrannical government. Misinformation and disinformation is included in the First Amendment and must be included if a man wants to “call his tongue his own,” because who defines misinformation and disinformation?
Is it the government? Is it the news media? Is it your neighbor? The one in power who is offended almost always determines what can and cannot be said. In other words, those tasked with defining misinformation and disinformation are often the people that restrict speech or ideas that they disagree with or are offended by.
Once the government, as an example, gains the power to decide what counts as the truth, those in power can control what the public sees, hears, and ultimately believes. They can dictate the media narrative, suppress dissenting voices, and flood the information space with messaging that serves their agenda, turning news into propaganda and citizens into passive recipients of state-approved truth.
When Jesus was being questioned by Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor, Jesus said, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pontius famously replied, “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38). In this exchange, Pilate wasn’t interested in the truth, he was interested in control. He knew he could achieve this by defining ‘truth’ to whatever he wanted.
The danger isn’t much that false ideas spread, it’s that genuine truth can be silenced under the label of disinformation. When Jesus spoke truth to power, He was condemned, not because He was wrong, but because He was inconvenient. If a perfect, sinless man could be labeled dangerous for telling the truth, how much more vulnerable are ordinary citizens in a world where truth is defined by those in charge?
Once ‘truth’ becomes subjective, and speech can be regulated under the labels of misinformation or disinformation, we don’t get a safer or more informed society, we get a controlled one. When those in power decide what counts as acceptable information, they aren’t just filtering out lies, they’re shaping public perception to fit their agenda.
There are many examples of governments attempting to control speech through the guise of stopping misinformation and disinformation.
Real Examples of Controlling Speech
There are plenty of examples, both historical and modern, of the government controlling truth by labeling it as misinformation and disinformation:
Soviet Union – “Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda” Laws: The USSR criminalized any speech that contradicted official party doctrine, labeling dissent as “misinformation” harmful to the state. Thousands of journalists, academics, and religious leaders were imprisoned or executed for “spreading false information.”
Nazi Germany – Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda: Joseph Goebbels oversaw media and information control, branding opposing views as “enemy propaganda” or “falsehoods threatening national unity.” The Nazi regime was able to control public opinion through total narrative control.
United States – Style DHS Board (2022): The Biden administration launched a short-lived “Disinformation Governance Board” under the Department of Homeland Security.
COVID-19 Vaccinations: Suppressing vaccine debate undermined public trust and limited open scientific discussion. Legitimate scientific debate around vaccine side effects, natural immunity, and the need for mandates was often censored or discredited, sometimes at the direct request of government agencies. Subsequently, internal emails revealed that White House officials pressured Facebook to remove or throttle posts that questioned vaccines, even if they didn’t violate any policies. In July 2021, President Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” by allowing COVID-19 misinformation to spread.
Overall, we see what happens when misinformation and disinformation is controlled by government for the “good of society.” When truth is regulated and dissent is silenced under the guise of fighting fake news, freedom doesn’t just fade, it gets redefined by those in power, opening the door wide open for tyranny.
The Bottom Line
- The modern left has pushed for regulation of misinformation under the guise of safety.
- The First Amendment includes misinformation and the it is necessary that speech is not controlled to prevent against tyranny.
- There are several examples of regulating misinformation, both in history and in the modern day, where we see an overreaching government lead to tyrannical rule.