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Lying Online No Longer a Crime In Rhode Island
stevegee58 writes "In a sudden outbreak of common sense, Rhode Island repealed an obscure law enacted in 1989 that made it a crime to lie in online postings. Violations of this law carried a maximum penalty of $500 and up to a year in prison. From the article: '"This law made virtually the entire population of Rhode Island a criminal," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union. "When this bill was enacted nobody had any idea what its ramifications were. Telling fibs may be wrong, but it shouldn't be criminal activity." The law aimed to stop fraud, con artists and scammers, but also outlawed the "transmission of false data" regardless of whether liars stood to profit from their deception or not.'"
Bakeries across the state would have a problem. At least the ones that make cake...
now if it is legal to lie on the internet, does that than mean lying about agreeing to a eula or other digital contract is valid if said agreement unlocks software after key exchange over the Internet?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
If you think lying is a morally un-praiseworthy activity (a negative of what we philosophers call morally sufficient), then you are rather near-sighted indeed.
One wonders if this would have covered all of those "Campaign Promises" made by politicians in their zeal to get elected... or any of the other spewage which regularly emanates from their persons...??? If so, this law might have had a useful purpose after all. What would it take to get such a law enacted in Washington D.C.?
Good I ain't from Rhode Island anyway.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Is that actually true? Because I read it online in a blog from Rhode Island...
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
I suspect that it wouldn't have stood up in court anyway. Surely it would be unconstitutional. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie.
Good I ain't from Rhode Island anyway.
People from Rhode Island are so honest that this law was just a formality, nobody there would ever lie. I know this is true because someone from Rhode Island told me, and people from Rhode Island are so honest ....
Not sure you'd want the ones that would take all 16cm.
No, it doesn't.
armani jeans
It does if you simply call it "freedom of speech" and then list no exceptions.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"Does this make me look fat?"
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; ..."
lying is your freedom...
unless of course you live in a nazi empire, oh wait, you live in America? yup you do....
Is that an argument for or against lying? Surely lying to people to make them feel good about themselves has caused great harm over the ages. Since people are used to being lied to this way from a young age, they consider it so shocking when someone is honest to them - but imagine a society where we started off with honesty from the start.
As to zephvark's response, *justify* it. Explain why freedom of speech in the sense of freedom to lie is necessary. "The freedom to say whatever you like" does not trivially follow from "the freedom to many forms of speech". You need to present an argument.
From the article: '"This law made virtually the entire population of Rhode Island a criminal," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union
Does he claim all of them are liars? Good thing it was Rhode Island. Them fighting words in Arkansas and Texas.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's not the cloth.
One part of protecting one's privacy is not to give real data on registration forms. Technically, a sort of lying.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can honestly answer this, "no" because the article of clothing isn't the cause. Fat makes you look fat, not a pair of pants.
You mean that you can /dishonestly/ answer this "no", in the sense that you are being intellectually dishonest.
Lawyering your way around language or context with intent to deceive or subjective recklessness as to deception is still dishonest.
The common sense is that most of the consequences that can come from lying (betrayal, fraud etc.pp.) are already punishable, and this law would then just penalize those lies which had no further consequences. And the common sense was that about everything smalltalk can be deconstructed to be purely lying: "Good Morning". We lie all the time, imagine contractual talks without small or big lies ("$1000 will be my last offer.", and then they finally agree to $1100). Why this should be punishable per se if it happens online is not clear.
the entire population of Rhode Island a criminal...
It wasn't this law. The entire population of Rhode Island has always been a criminal.
(I grew up in South County, Rhode Island)
RI resident here...
Let me think about what we had back in 1989...
In South County RI, we had a handful of BBSes and URI's access to Bitnet if you had an academic account or begged for one, not even the Internet. Everyone was still at 300, 1200, and a few at 2400, and almost nobody had v32 (9600bps) modems because they were new in 1989 and ridiculously expensive.
If you had more money than sense, you subscribed to CompuServe, Prodigy, or GEnie (to be called AOL later) and paid by the minute and also paid for the long distance to the Warwick or Providence numbers (Yay in-state long distance in a state only 47 miles the long way!). BBSes were free.
The community was so small. You could literally visit all the boards from Block Island to East Greenwich and read all the messages in an hour if you ignored the redialling. We also didn't have OmniNet or LOCNet yet to tie north/south RI and the Islands/East Bay together yet. That had to wait for the heyday of BBSes in the early 90s, and even then, you could fit everyone who cared about OmniNet administration (north AND south!) into one Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor (we couldn't meet at Casey's because half of everyone was under-age).
And everyone knew each other.
There wasn't much to lie about online at all. Really, there wasn't. It puzzles me as to what prompted this legislation that far back.
The only big whopper of a lie I remember was Matt saying his BBS couldn't be hacked, some time in the early 90s. This was a challenge to everyone at the meeting and pissed off his co-sys, who gave him up to the rest of us hyenas.
Shout out to LizardKing on here, who is the only RIer I know on here from that era.
--
BMO
That would mean, unfortunately, that Scientology is allowed again in RI. Certainly they were prosecuted in Rhode Island for their blatant lies and deception?
Hail Xenu!
I was all set up to sell online sarcasm detection software in RI.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is awesome for Curt Schilling. Now he can embellish his bloggy arse off until the cows come home about what a heroic job creator he is and not have to worry about getting nicked for it.
Freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie.
Yes, you're free to do so...you're not free to do it without consequences in certain circumstances, though.
It was one of many examples of democracies trying to "simplify" our decisions with a rule or law. If you ask a majority of people what should be "allowed" they will create a set of rules which not even Nazis and Maoists can successfully regulate. Three strikes and you're out laws lead to medical marijuana and Supreme Court "cruel and unusual" laws overturned. Society desperately needs "depth perception", the ability to implement laws and regulation based on 1) priority of risk, and 2) feasibility of regulating. The "risks" posed by X (lying on the internet, gay or interracial marriage, immigration, piracy, smoking pot) are nothing compared to the risk of society with a power to ban them or the power of the mafia to corrupt that regulation. Society's cognitive risk dissonance has created thousands of laws just as silly as this Rhode Island example. We need to start at the top and prioritize real risks and feasible enforcement.
Gently reply
Does that mean sending a 0 over the internet was illegal?
Lied about my favorite colour. Go thrown into a chasm.
Yes, it does.
Oh shit! I lie online ALL THE TIME! In fact, I am telling a lie right now!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
the "transmission of false data" is not lying. You can believe in false data and transmit it without lying.
I suspect that it wouldn't have stood up in court anyway. Surely it would be unconstitutional. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to lie.
Not at all. A lack of prior restraint certainly includes the freedom to say things that may be lies, but...you don't have any explicit right to lie or deceive.
Otherwise you couldn't be punished for it, if somebody caught you doing it.
You don't have the right to lie, no matter what Jon "Not intended to be a factual statement" Kyl says. He could, and should have been censured in Congress for letting his over-inflated rhetoric trespass into the area of deliberate misrepresentation.
Can you be punished in all circumstances? No, but if somebody in a position of authority does choose to punish you, they can. Or they can just call you out on it, and if you protest, you just reveal the worth of your own character.
Because you do NOT have the freedom to lie.
OK. I lied.
But I'm in RI, so it's OK.
So, if i lived in RI, said i "laughed my ass off", will the cops come to check to see if my ass is actually still in tact?
Because there's a difference between society generally tolerating something, and society passing an overly broad draconian law.
And what exactly is wrong with me lying to prevent my wife from finding out about the surprise Birthday party we're having for her? Lying is not always wrong, despite what you might have been told by your parents when you were three years old.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Freedom of Speech is always limited in some fashion.
Yes, people are allowed to lie, but there are still exceptions to our freedom of speech (because in the law books they are followed by a list of exceptions).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Which, in reality, is not what happened.
Everyone seems to forget that the first amendment has specific words in it with specific meanings, and they arent "you have the right to say whatever you want under any circumstance".
... the argument is that the facilitation of falsehood, generally quite strictly proscribed in philosophical contexts, is simply a nod-nod-wink-wink affair?
Fraud, perjury, libel, slander, making false statements.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Your freedom to lie stops at my face... or something.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Actually, the law said it was a misdemeanor to "intentionally send false data". Now, you could parse that as "(intentionally) (send false data)", but you could also parse that as "(intentionally send) (false data)". Under the second parsing, it would be a crime not only to lie, but even to be mistaken about something!
What! No politicians we prosecuted under it!?
CAPTCHA = prosper (not now - we need to keep this great law)
"Does this make me look fat?"
For the (untrue) answer to that question, you might claim self defence.
Fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, and fraud.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...because in the law books they are followed by a list of exceptions...
In the Constitution they are not... The amendment is perfectly clear. If you wish to legally restrict speech (in the USA), you must amend the constitution.
You mean we are allowed to transmit all the 1's (logically true) we like, but go to jail for sending any 0's (logicall false)??
Let's define terms here: Lying means intentionally making statements to lead people to believe something that the liar knows isn't true.
We lie all the time
Speak for yourself.
And the common sense was that about everything smalltalk can be deconstructed to be purely lying: "Good Morning".
False example. In common parlance, "Good morning" is a short form of something like "I wish you a good morning", not a statement that it is, or has been, a good morning.
imagine contractual talks without small or big lies ("$1000 will be my last offer.", and then they finally agree to $1100). Why this should be punishable per se if it happens online is not clear.
It looks as if part of your point is that because many people in our society lie in order to advance their desires (as in your example of contract negotiation), lying is therefore required and therefore acceptable.
Lying is NOT necessary. However, many people fear that the consequence of being truthful may be greater than the consequence of lying.
The rationale for lying not being against the law most of the time is that it would be nearly impossible to enforce, the most obviously damaging instances of lying are already illegal (fraud, slander, libel, etc), and people presume that most lies are not harmful, because the negative effects are not immediately visible.
Which, in reality, is not what happened.
It isn't? If you're going by what it literally says, it really doesn't list any exceptions. Whether you think that's a good idea is another matter.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
There might be a subtle and sophisticated argument - and merely crying "freedom of speech!" isn't subtle or sophisticated - but the argument needs to be presented. It needs to be supported by both logic and historical evidence. Either lying is not morally wrong or, despite being morally wrong, society must usually allow it.
No. No, it needn't. Those who wish to prohibit it need to present an argument.
Imagine someone who doesn't know much about America has just arrived on your shores. They come from a completely different cultural background to you. Tell them why your society thinks that people should usually be allowed to lie.
Rather than trying to explain to them why each of a million and one things "should usually be allowed", I might make far more effective use of my time explaining that my society recognizes a distinction between the society and the state, and addressing why we demand a higher level of justification for any proposed law than "society doesn't accept that behavior".
Then again, they'd probably be baffled by the mismatch between the distinction I'm explaining (as taught in every American civics text) and the post-FDR erosion of that distinction to meaningless, and would ask me why we keep voting for lizards.
or is anyone else concerned about the implications of this law and its interaction with a corporation's on-line presence? It seems too easy to justify false claims in on-line discussions/reviews with this sort of thing. Maybe I misread this article, and it really does just apply to individual people and not businesses, but I didn't see that anywhere.
If she asks you "Is she prettier than me?"
Never answer these with the truth, if the truthful answer would be "no".
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This statement is false.
Did I lie or did I speak the truth? JUSTICE SYSTEM SMASHED TO PIECES! >:)