Honestly!

I have written frequently about the importance of trust for society; that in its absence, any economic exchange (social or monetary) incurs transaction costs. Like market failure, those additional costs will lead to some exchanges not taking place. Even without such missed exchange opportunities, the amount of exchange will fall as the cost of each rises. 

The corollary to loss of trust in a decline in honesty; a lack of honesty erodes trust. Being honest was once, nominally at least, widely shared societal value. Even if some (or many) were not honest in their dealing with others, few dared to admit that they did not think being honest was a good and lying was bad.  Increasingly that shared value seems to have eroded. 

The poster child for dishonesty was the country's 45th president. He lied frequently and blatantly but such was (and still is) his appeal to the highly motivated alt-right that now animates the GOP, no one dared correct him, let alone scold him, for his bad (i.e. lying) behavior. (One possibility is that most of those with whom he had much contact shared his disregard for honesty as a value).

Part of the battle around what tech companies allow on their platforms is about honesty. While the discussion is ostensibly about "misinformation" what many may be reacting to is the lack of respect for honesty as a core value. While not all misinformation is a lie, all lies are misinformation. But by lumping them together we no longer reinforce the idea that lying is unacceptable, or at very least something to be ashamed of, in a civilized society.   

It is telling that the more benign-sounding term, "misinformation" is now widely used; its seeming neutrality robs it of the value-laden component that was an important pillar of creating a set of shared values around right and wrong. A similar mealy-mouthed and now ubiquitous term is "claimed, without evidence". Presumably calling something a lie would expose publishers to deformation law suits since the burden on the defendant would be to prove that the misinformation was made with the knowledge that it was untrue and proving what was is someone's head can be tricky.     

The tech companies' defense is that the misstatements are not made by them but their users, thus they are not responsible for the misinformation and have no duty to police such statements.  This ignores the wider damage letting go of honest as a core value does to society.  

Since honest is a public good and trust is often (as it is in this instance) an externality for businesses, there is necessarily a role for government.  In Britain the Advertising Standards Authority regulates misleading and dishonest advertisements; in the US the Federal Trade Commission carries a similar charge. 

This is clearly a very contested question; go too far and government is regulating speech; do nothing and trust erodes and the fabric of society is undermined. At the moment the GOP is a beneficiary of widespread misinformation (the Big Lie being only the most recent and prominent example), but the embracing of exaggerated claims that stray into lies goes back a long way, from McCarthy, to Gingrich to McConnell. And it's not only the GOP; Biden has made some pretty dubious claims too (as has Bill Clinton). 

Increasingly the public is happy to ignore dishonesty it if serves their side's cause. With more dishonest, society's bifurcation accelerates and tribalism dominate dialog and compromise. Tribalism in turn creates a "end justifies the means" mentality that further weakens adherence to shared values like honesty. 

And that, in part, is what has led us to a point in time where the prospect of serious politically motivated civil unrest is no longer unthinkable.