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I'm right there with you that "this sort of thing", i.e. deliberately subverting the process of democracy, should be a serious crime on par with treason. Howev
by dTal 7y ago
I'm right there with you that "this sort of thing", i.e. deliberately subverting the process of democracy, should be a serious crime on par with treason.
However, can we qualitatively define a line that demarcates "honest communication" from "malicious attempts to change public opinion"? You can't make it a crime to try convince people of things. The basic intent we would like to capture is it should be illegal to lie for political gain, including subtle lies of omission like anonymously pretending on the internet that you're a disinterested bystander. But lying is a very slippery concept to legally define (as is "political gain").
- d--b 7y agoWell, faking twitter accounts is one thing that should be dealt with, and I agree this is hard. But here, we're talking about spoofing actual people's identity without their knowledge.
- zo1 7y agoSo hacking peoples' identity without their knowledge is the bad thing here. What they did with those identities ideally is secondary.
- PeterStuer 7y agoSo on which side of your nebulous edge-casing slippery slope do you think hiring firms to write millions of fake comments from stolen identities to provide your captured regulator enough FUD should fall?
- dTal 7y ago...the bad side? I thought I was very clear about that. I don't really understand why I'm catching flak. Obviously the stolen identities is something we can definitively point to that can fairly straightforwardly be made illegal, if it isn't already. But most astroturfing campaigns don't do that, and although it makes this a particularly compelling case it's not actually the meatiest part of what makes it bad. Millions of comments from invented accounts to provide background FUD would also be very evil. But what part of that can we actually make illegal, without also compromising the free speech of you and me? Hiring PR firms? Writing comments on the internet? Unfortunately, "I know sketchy shit when I see it" just isn't good enough. I'm not sure what you think I'm arguing. I want there to be answer. I was hoping for suggestions.
- pjc50 7y agoThis line works OK for ordinary fraud, and even in the complex space of securities offerings.
- elliekelly 7y agoYou might find the controversial legal concept of “Honest Services Fraud”[1] interesting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honest_services_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honest_services_fraud