We're at a precarious time in history when journalism is being used particularly effectively as an intentional disinformation tool. "Real journalism" unfortunately does need to be distinguished. Free speech doesn't encompass fraud.
Once you give the government control over what constitutes "fraud", you can kiss your freedom to speak goodbye. Every totalitarian state in history suppressed (or suppresses) speech in the name of controlling disinformation.
That fraud committed under cover of "news", "journalism", or other forms of reporting, remains fraud.
Here committed by a "citizen journalist", interpreting the term very broadly.
There's the Infowars / Alex (nutjob) Jones / Pizzagate case as well, where, under threat of a lawsuit, Jones has tried to walk back earlier reporting.
(There's another Alex S. Jones, a serious journalist, associated with the Shorenstein Center. Who I strongly suspect curses his, or Nutjob's, parents, on a fairly regular basis. One of the rather more pronounced, ironic, and tragic cases of identity confusion.)
You're mixing apples and oranges here. There's a difference between committing fraud to get a true story and printing something the government decides isn't true.
Indeed it doesn't, which is why fraud has been illegal since the foundation of the country.
Is "disinformation" the same as fraud? Who shall decide what constitutes "intentional disinformation" and what doesn't, and at what point it rises to fraudulence? We already have laws that address these questions -- how do you suggest modifying them?
If we're using the election as a meter of the impact of this "disinformation", and, obviously we are, since the moral panic over "fake news" was a propaganda campaign to respond to Clinton's loss, it would seem that the country is pretty split over whose information is credible, and which side is perpetrating a fraud.
Let people decide and listen to the sources that they find credible. Why is the market not good enough? Is it because you don't like the decisions people make when they're free to select their own sources of truth?
How long until I should expect to see you at church, pulling the minister away from the pulpit to correct his "disinformation"? Wait -- don't answer that.
How can we have any freedom once we go down this road? It goes right back to the old ways of "might makes right". Whomever has the most power at the time will be able to decree some speech "fraud" and "disinformation" and punish people for speaking ideas that are too dangerous to entrust to the hoi polloi.
You know that in restrictive regimes, they don't go around saying "It's great living in a non-free country." They go around saying "We are free here, we just don't allow evil men to defraud the people with lies".
Ultimately, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder. Just gotta watch it to make sure nothing you believe ever shifts out from under you and becomes "hate speech", "disinformation", or, plainly, "fraud" without your realizing it.
> Whomever has the most power at the time will be able to decree some speech "fraud" and "disinformation" and punish people for speaking ideas that are too dangerous to entrust to the hoi polloi.
Yes, and in a free speech society, whomever has the most power and/or money at the time will be able to take advantage of free speech to conduct widespread and targeted disinformation and harassment campaigns - under a false flag of "angry citizens" - that can change (and have changed) the course of history.
Assuming you mean the Mexican constitution, it's kind of vague:
Article 6
. The expression of ideas shall not be subject to any judicial or administrative
investigation, unless it offends good morals, infringes the rights of others, incites to crime,
or disturbs the public order.
"Offends good morals" is not defined anywhere, so it's up to interpretation whether that includes fraud. "Infringes the rights of others" is defined in various places, but in similarly vague terms.
The speech itself is protected, but speech can be deemed a tort in a civil proceeding, regardless. Freedom of speech protects opinions and best-effort reporting of facts, not necessarily all speech. Granted, we have to be careful not to exclude too much from protected speech, or we will never have the right again. The canonical example is causing panic with malice of intent, such as yelling fire!, fire!, fire! in a crowded hall, knowing well that there is no fire and with the intent is to cause a trampling hazard.
Fraud usually has to do with commercial statute (in the U.S., the UCC), where misrepresenting goods is grounds for a civil dispute.
