Why can’t we make a law against deliberate deceit that spurs violence or leads to death?

Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash

We have laws against fraud. We have laws against the violation of written contracts. We have laws against theft and murder. Why not crimes against spreading disinformation that leads directly to violence, murder, or death?

Every time I’ve mentioned this idea in the past, I got the same response, “It’s impossible to prove,” or “There would be so many lawsuits we couldn’t function.” I don’t buy it.

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Before Russian operatives figured out how to abuse social media (particularly Facebook) in a way that tricked millions of people into believing horrific lies created solely to confuse, upset, anger, and agitate, we all believed folks ought to know what’s true--and if they didn’t, that’s their problem. I don’t think we can afford to be that simplistic anymore.

If we look at Trump, Fox TV (I refuse to call it news) and Q, it’s clear the scales have tipped. A channel should not be allowed to call itself “news” when its hosts peddle deliberate lies. A leader of the free world should not be allowed to use the bully pulpit to deliberately deceive, knowing it will lead to chaos and death. A single actor with mal intent should not be allowed to spread lies aimed at tearing down democracy for his own sick purposes. Yet, that’s exactly what Fox TV, Trump, and Q have done.

We can argue that without Facebook and the Russians they would not have succeeded so dramatically, but the intent was there, regardless. It’s just a matter of degree at this point.

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Fox TV makes money at the expense of the health and well-being of the American people. Specifically, Fox hosts promote treatments for Covid that we know don’t work. Trump lies to promote himself, but his lies have led to the deaths of countless people who believed him when he said Covid was no worse than the flu. Both Fox and Trump have platforms that convey a sense of legitimacy. Fox is called “news” and Trump was called “President.” Both need to be held accountable for using their power to abuse the American people by feeding them disinformation.

As for Q, if the HBO documentary Q: Into the Storm is accurate, he’s just some loser ex-pat in the Philippines who got off on his ability to convince people to believe crazy shit. But look what chaos he has wrought!

If we had a law against deliberate deceit that leads to violence, significant harm, or death, we could force Fox to stop telling deliberate lies or at least stop using “News” in its moniker. We could sue Trump for the Big Lie and finally make him pay for what he has done—not to mention finally putting that lie to rest. And we could investigate the posts made by Q and not only expose Q for who Q is, but finally reveal the source of the game that too many believed was real.

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Dominion is suing Fox and some of its hosts for multiple billions of dollars over the lies Fox TV personnel spewed about their voting machines. The standing criteria needed to sue is usually nothing more than proof that a person or company was directly affected by the crime.

Can anybody doubt that hundreds of thousands of people whose family members died because they believed the Covid lies perpetrated by Fox TV, Trump and/or Q, were victims of deliberate deceit?

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Deliberate deceit has become the single biggest weapon in the Republican arsenal. It is being used to take over our democracy and replace it with an autocracy. Russian operatives at the Internet Research Agency, posing as Americans, generated millions of followers based on this deception—creating Facebook groups that looked like neighbors with like-minded views but purporting to have “news” that fed their predilection for nonsense.

Posts by Q added to the uproar by accusing Democrats of eating babies and suggested that lizard DNA can be found in humans. The former led to the pizza-gate guy storming a pizza parlor with the intent to kill the perpetrators of a crime that never existed (in a basement that didn’t exist either), and the latter caused a man to murder his two children because he thought serpent DNA in their genes was going to infiltrate our species.

We need a way to fight back. We need a way to punish sources of disinformation that feed violence, murder, and death.

If print journalism has vetting standards, why doesn’t Cable TV news have the same? Why not Facebook? Why not the president of the United States? Why not Q?

We already have the proof we need to tie violence, murder and death directly to the deliberate deceit perpetrated by Fox TV, Donald Trump, and Q. But without a law that makes deliberate deceit a crime, what can we do about it?

And if we do nothing about it now, how can we possibly expect to prevent the same things from happening in the future?

 

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BTW, did any of you notice that the same guy who is believed to be Q is the computer geek the My Pillow guy had on screen at his conference? I’m referring to the conference where we were told the proof of election fraud would finally be revealed, but it wasn’t.

I was stunned when I saw the embedded screenshot of him (Ron Watkins) at the bottom of the news video where it was admitted, finally, that the file of data they’d been hyping for months proved absolutely nothing. The I.T. guy they had up on the screen is the guy from Q: Into the Storm—all this crap came from one fucked up dude and his creepy dad (John Watkins) who moved to the Philippines and started hosting various platforms where people do despicable things and tape them so they can share their sick stuff with others.

These guys, who apparently took over from the original Q (which was right about the time the posts shifted from a game for gamers to a platform for anarchy in America) need to be investigated as part of the January 6th insurrection. Check out the documentary if you haven’t seen it. It makes an excellent case for the identity of Q and where to find him.)