Excuse me while I go donate even more money to PieFed

  • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    Then you’re causing harm to someone through deception, the harm is what’s criminalized. You can lie to people all day, but if you use deception to steal money directly, physically harm someone, or otherwise cause monetary loss, that’s when criminal (or civil) cases can be brought.

    If I say snickers has no peanuts and you think peanuts are icky, nobody is going to jail. If I say snickers has no peanuts and you are deathly allergic, I may. The lie itself isn’t illegal, if it was, I expect my door kicked in here shortly: Snickers contains no peanuts.

    Well, my door is still intact and no criminal charges have been filed.

    If lying counted as fraud, literally every politician (as well as every other human) would be in jail currently.

    • yucandu@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Right, so you and the person doing the censoring just disagree on what’s harmful.

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        That’d be what the lawyers would argue about in court. What’s more, proving intent to defraud is required and can be difficult.

        But what I’m saying is that the reason fraud is illegal is the result of the speech, not the speech itself. If the speech causes no harm (or loss yadda yadda), it’s not actionable, be it lies or truth.