Is Disinformation on Twitter Legal? Is Disinformation on Twitter Legal?

Disinformation is viewed by social media users almost everyday. According to merriam
Webster, disinformation is defined as “false information deliberately and often covertly
spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the
truth”. Barbara Fought, who teaches Communications Law at the Newhouse School of
Public Communications, says disinformation is protected under the first amendment and
cannot be forcibly removed.

“The First Amendment actually allows for lies and false speech because particularly when
it comes to political speech, which a lot of social media is, people’s opinions about current
issues, the Founders wanted a lot of discussion.”

Fought says there is a better alternative for fighting disinformation on Twitter than just
asking for the governments help and restrictions.

“The Founders would say that the remedy for false information or misleading information in
that marketplace of ideas, is more speech. You fight speech you don’t like, with more speech.”

A lot of disinformation seen on social media comes from video editing. Shawn Lisi, who is
an independent video editor in Canastota, says it can be difficult deciphering if a video has been edited or not.

“You can’t tell if they were trying to edit the sound, which is something you can do besides
just the visual edit. You can edit the audio and sometimes you can manipulate or put in
words that aren’t being actually said.”

As Shawn mentioned, editing a video can be very simple. As you see here with Adobe
Premiere, all it is is a few clicks of a button and all of a sudden you have a different video. I’m Chris Lauck, N-C-C news.