Spread fake news - go to jail ...

[dogtag]

The guy definitely looks Danish, and with a name like
Salah Salem Saleh Sukaiman could there be any doubt.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/foreigner-to-be-first-person-charged-under-malaysias-new-anti-fake-news-law

If we had that law here we'd have just Drudge and Fox.

[blackhawknj]

IMHO the 1st Amendment protects fake news.

[dogtag]

IMHO the 1st Amendment protects fake news.

Then why don't you go to a crowded theater and shout Fire.
This will test your theory presuming there is no fire.

[milboltnut]

if your eye offends thee cut it out... or your tongue. Who hasn't lied?

[aintright]

There again some common sense comes into play . At a time when the country was new , I believe it was written with intentention of protecting our freedoms from enemies of our freedom , not some slick talking lawyer who would choose to overlook that at their convieience . What the hell do you think the second amendment was included for ? It was for us to protect ourselves from those who would take those freedoms , like the left media . Some of the constitution I believe was written to provide a guideline of freedoms and some was written with protecting those freedoms , if you let an enemy of those freedoms flourish , how the hell do you expect to keep them ?
Kenneth

[Vern Humphrey]

IMHO the 1st Amendment protects fake news.

It certainly does -- after all, who decides what is fake and what is real? If we had such a law, it would have been used by the Obama Administration to shut down FOX News and other outlets.

[blackhawknj]

Shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater is a judge made doctrine. And what if nobody pays attention ?
In the 1960s the USSR dealt with dissidents by accusing them of "slandering" the USSR.
Years ago I saw a TV roundtable, when the topic of the media policing itself came up, Phil Donahue asked :
"Are we going to allow someone to say 'I'm the news and you're not !' ?"
An actor using a stage name, an author writing under a pseudonym or pen name-could that be construed as misrepresentation ?

[Vern Humphrey]

Shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater is a judge made doctrine.

It is indeed. There is an old saying, "Hard cases make bad law." Oliver Wendell Holmes -- the same judge who used junk science to rule the state could forcibly sterilize people -- wanted to make bad law, and so he invented a hard case -- a panic that never happened in a theater that never existed.

[JB White]

It is indeed. There is an old saying, "Hard cases make bad law." Oliver Wendell Holmes -- the same judge who used junk science to rule the state could forcibly sterilize people -- wanted to make bad law, and so he invented a hard case -- a panic that never happened in a theater that never existed.

Actually there were some incidents where that happened and people died in the stampede to evacuate. Holmes used those examples as an analogy to rule contrary to the Bill of Rights. People can be held accountable for their words if they incite a riot or create a situation where others are placed in danger. This "free speech" thing has been controversial from pre-WW1 right on through the Ferguson riots and beyond. Authors write from all perspectives, politicians are bombarded from all directions, and everyone fears the potential outcomes if seriously addressed again.

[Vern Humphrey]

Actually there were some incidents where that happened and people died in the stampede to evacuate. Holmes used those examples as an analogy to rule contrary to the Bill of Rights. People can be held accountable for their words if they incite a riot or create a situation where others are placed in danger. This "free speech" thing has been controversial from pre-WW1 right on through the Ferguson riots and beyond. Authors write from all perspectives, politicians are bombarded from all directions, and everyone fears the potential outcomes if seriously addressed again.

There were stampedes in theaters when fire broke out. i can't find a single instance of a stampede being caused by someone maliciously shouting "fire" when there was no fire.

But if it DID happen, there is no need to infringe on the First Amendment -- you could simply charge the perpetrator with manslaughter and be done with it.

[Vern Humphrey]

Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed fliers to draft-age men, urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. The First Amendment did not alter the well-established law in cases where the attempt was made through expressions that would be protected in other circumstances. In this opinion, Holmes said that expressions which in the circumstances were intended to result in a crime, and posed a "clear and present danger" of succeeding, could be punished.

Handing out leaflets is a "clear and present danger?"

I stand by my original comment -- Holmes wanted to make bad law and INVENTED a hard case to justify it.