Re: world leaders and politicians should be held to a higher standard when tweeting
There is a growing awareness that a healthy public discourse is essential to the stability of democracy. I've been advocating for basic standards of democratic process for decades, have given up, and recently started again.
Disinformation and conspiracy theory was more of an amusement, when we used to talk about 'Elvis is not dead.' Unfortunately the nexus of frictionless communication and surveillance capitalism has left us with a ticking time bomb and the bad guys know it. The shameless push to achieve autocratic power in many western nations should strike fear in every heart.
There are however, tools close at hand to turn the tap off. In Canada, we have codified the fact that some forms of communication serve no purpose in a healthy democracy. Since 1970, it has been a criminal offence for any citizen to make hateful statements about another. Our hate speech legislation has served to remove the worst offenders from the public stage before they can do significant damage.
Now we all need to consider that a new class of curb must be placed on those who seek any public profile; media, politicians, celebrities, social media influencers. Those who transmit false statements or foment should face the criminal charge and jail time of our hate speech law.
Of course we already afford these protections to money. Contract law, advertising regulation and defamation laws describe the template that should extend to protecting the peace and good order of democracy.
Thankfully, some of note are now specifically raising the concept;
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/18/the-big-idea-should-we-have-a-truth-law
My own writing on the matter is here;
https://medium.com/@theGCHRD/lies-fomenting-and-hate-speech-4b71a045c9b8
https://medium.com/@theGCHRD/the-truckers-are-victims-just-not-of-mandates-8fc840356095
If you have ideas that would add traction to the adoption of these regulations, a bit of wind in the sails would certainly be appreciated. Brexit, climate change, antivax, Putin, Trump; it's well past time to wrest control from the liars.