Who is the arbiter of the truth? What about people who are sincerely misinformed and well-intentioned?
Free speech laws in the US seem to strike a good balance: if you're selling a product under false pretenses, you can be sued. If you're just publishing content, you can't be sued.
> Who is the arbiter of the truth?
Why does a fact need an arbiter in the first place? It is general scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism, that homeopathy is placebo at best, and that the "worms" that people excrete after drinking bleach is their intestinal lining. And for heaven's sake the earth is a globe, not a flat pizza. Everyone has a right to be an absolute moron, but it should not be allowed to knowingly spread dangerous lies. Democratic discourse requires facts as foundation, not lies.
> What about people who are sincerely misinformed and well-intentioned?
Reeducation camps? I don't care about people too dumb to accept science. Sarcasm aside, I do not see a realistic way on how to re-integrate people brainwashed by conspiracy crap over years back into democratic discourse that does not at the same time build a system that can easily be abused by fascists. And this is a problem.
> if you're selling a product under false pretenses, you can be sued. If you're just publishing content, you can't be sued.
The people selling bleach cannot be prosecuted. They sell bleach, a perfectly legal product. The people who say that bleach kills autism cannot be prosecuted either, because "free speech". Meanwhile, parents are pumping their children full with bleach because they are afraid of "autism". I would prefer a system where no child has to suffer bleach enemas because their dumb-as-rocks-parents fell victim to quackers - I would prefer a system where these quackers are locked up before their speech leads to direct quantifiable suffering.
This is also why fascists themselves are the ones who tend to embrace violence and censorship; fascism isn’t typically capable of surviving in an otherwise free and peaceful society.
The problem is that (not only in the US!) education funding has gone way downhill and the "free speech!!!" absolutist crowd does not realize that truly free speech depends on an audience intelligent enough to separate facts from quackery (such as homeopathy, antivaxx and bleach enemas) or fascism - in a totally free-speech society with a dumb populace the profiteers will exploit whatever they can.
And yes, I am of the opinion that antivaxxers and other quackers should be jailed, for they are a danger to public health.