<story><title>Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts</title><url>http://blog.mass.gov/masslawlib/legal-history/the-law-against-lying-and-false-news-in-colonial-massachusetts/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rsync</author><text>&amp;quot;Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Thankfully, we&amp;#x27;ve learned a few things since then and liberal (classic definition, not American definition), democratic minded people know how dangerous government defined truth (no matter how simple or well accepted) is.&lt;p&gt;There is a cost to this, of course - the citizenry is required to have a level of sophistication and erudition and they will be forced to make nuanced and complicated judgements about the state of their world.&lt;p&gt;If you find that too high a bar to cross, a &amp;quot;ministry of truth&amp;quot; may sound attractive.  Please grow up and resist that urge.  It may help to read about twentieth century dictatorships and the history of modern, repressive regimes in general.</text></comment>
<story><title>Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts</title><url>http://blog.mass.gov/masslawlib/legal-history/the-law-against-lying-and-false-news-in-colonial-massachusetts/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jfoutz</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m really happy to have my freedom of speech. I don&amp;#x27;t think i would do well under the classic Puritan model.&lt;p&gt;I do sometimes wonder if there&amp;#x27;s room for a special class of formal speech for journalism. Grant rights perhaps formalizing protecting a source. But also require some responsibilities. Not sure what the standard should be, but we do the same thing for lawyers and doctors.&lt;p&gt;Also &amp;quot;pernicious to the publick weal&amp;quot; is an amusing phrase.</text></comment>