We're too concerned with edge cases to justify the absolute nightmare we are in with regards to information. For every "true" conspiracy theory there are millions of junk ones - of course some will be partially correct.
We are so afraid of losing "one correct idea" that we allow orders of magnitude more bad ones to flourish and drown out good ideas anyway.
Dealing with foreign powers abusing the system would be easy if the current administration didn't benefit from it.
The large amounts of misinformation also threatens debate, does it not? Most misinformation and conspiracy theories are not looking for proper debate and often times result to logical fallacies and falsehoods to prove their point. Thus, proper debate is drowned out.
By and large I don't think debate is threatened. We have to draw a pragmatic line somewhere, otherwise we will waste time debating if the earth is flat and the endless amount of absurd ideas. Ultimately, we've already debated many of these ideals, if not explicitly.
I don't know if conspiracies do that much harm to debate. They're quite the fringe topic. Misinformation, yes, but classifying misinformation (in its not-so-obvious forms) is a hard problem. So while I agree there needs to be a line, I also think that in enforcing a ban on misinformation we will necessarily end up limiting debate. The line should stay at something like inciting violence.
How much time do you have? There are endless amounts conspiracy theories, often times discussed by people who don't have any clue. Society NEEDS a way to cut through the chaff and noise, or eventually it'll collapse in on itself, and someone wins (typically the one with better information.)
> The line should stay at something like inciting violence.
The government line should definitely stay there. But private corporations should be free to push any agenda that they like.
You forget that not all conspiracy theories are equal. A democracy could survive hundreds of bullshit conspiracy theories for decades, but suppress the next COINTELPRO and your democracy may be dead in five years.
We are so afraid of losing "one correct idea" that we allow orders of magnitude more bad ones to flourish and drown out good ideas anyway.
Dealing with foreign powers abusing the system would be easy if the current administration didn't benefit from it.