Abstract
The final chapter offers a brief set of closing thoughts about the state of political deception and potential problems the future might hold. While acknowledging the importance of the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech, this chapter argues that thought must be given to the possibility of regulating false political speech in some manner. Special concern is given to acts of deception in which American operatives engage in collusion with foreign entities and the ways in which technological advances in video and audio editing software create the potential for problematic shenanigans in political campaigns.
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Notes
- 1.
In the references section of the book I have this source cited as coming from The National Archives with the URL directly leading to the text of the letter in which Jefferson wrote this, in HTML for easy reading. An image of the original letter can be found at the Library of Congress website at this URL: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.015_0414_0416/.
- 2.
In recent years, more research is being done on the effectiveness of fact checking claims in order to better inform the public. Swire (2017) found that Trump voters did update their beliefs about certain false claims, but did not change their voting preferences as a result. Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler (2010) actually found that, not only does fact checking not change someone’s mind, it can actually have a “backfire effect,” where it leads to them strengthening their false beliefs.
- 3.
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Spicer, R.N. (2018). Conclusion: Two Paths in the Legal Woods. In: Free Speech and False Speech. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69820-5_5
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