Lies and Elections
Piotr Szyhalski

Lies and Elections

How exceptional should we consider the electoral context when it comes to the regulation of lies? 

How should the government regulate election-related speech? Should lies about where, when, or how to vote be illegal? What of lies about election results, as in Trump’s “Big Lie”? Should such lies be regulated more aggressively by the social media platforms, or even the government? Other election-related lies also raise thorny free speech questions. Can or should foreign actors be able to intervene in electoral speech in the run-up to elections? How much should campaign finance law be used to patrol misinformation and disinformation about election donations and spending? Is it possible to regulate election-related speech more stringently without giving government officials power to undermine the integrity of the democratic process? More fundamentally, how exceptional should we consider the electoral context when it comes to the regulation of lies? And how do race, nationality, and gender play into both election-related disinformation and its regulation? 

Lies and the Law

Related Lies and the Law blogs

We Must Fight Lies, Ignorance, and the Bigotry They Produce If We Are to Remain a Democracy
Janell Byrd-Chichester

Race, the Epistemic Crisis of Democracy, and the First Amendment
Atiba Ellis

Drawing the Line Between False Election Speech and False Campaign Speech
Richard L. Hasen

Congress Must Act To Establish Sensible Rules on Electoral Speech
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Schedule

  • Online

    Featuring 

    Richard Hasen, University of California, Irvine School of Law 

    Janell Byrd-Chichester, Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

    Atiba Ellis, Marquette University Law School

    Matt Perault, Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    Moderated by 

    Genevieve Lakier, Knight First Amendment Institute

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