Sunstein, Cass R. Liars: falsehoods and free speech in an age of deception. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. xiv, 173 p. ISBN 978-0-19-754511-9. £17.99.
Cass Robert Sunstein is a most colourful personality and highly intellectual legal scholar, the author of controversial ideas and most cited legal books. He should be widely known to information science researchers and professionals for his contribution to the studies of free speech, rumours, and knowledge production; or for his position in the President Obama's administration as the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
Liars is his latest book dealing with a highly disturbing issue of fake news and misinformation that has seemingly run out of hand even in very high governmental offices in the whole world. The author examines the problem of falsehoods from the point of view of protection of free speech. He outlines his double goal in writing this book as both protecting the foundations of the free speech: falsehoods ought not be censored or regulated, even if they are lies... If officials are licensed to punish falsehoods, they will end up punishing dissent (p. 3); but also facing the danger that modern falsehood afflicts: governments should have power to regulate certain lies and falsehoods, at least if they can be shown to be genuinly harmful by any objective measure (p. 4). Thus, the major problem that the author has set out to solve in this text is that of stopping harmful lies while protecting free speech.
These goals are methodically pursued throughout all nine chapters of this small book by defining the concepts, setting the legal and social framework of the problem and providing numerous examples from real court cases and legal documents. The whole problem is set in the context of the legislation of the United States, however, the general principles would apply to any democratic society.
The truth matters for society first of all because it is the main instrument in establishing trust among its many members and institutions, individuals and governments on national and international levels. Falsehoods are a natural element of life and most of them would just be regarded as false statements born out of ignorance or gullibility. Even deliberate lies often take the form of jokes, exagerration or fantasy. However, others distort the truth to the extent that lives are ruined or the social fabric is seriously damaged. The immediate spread of such lies can and does cause danger of enormous extent, especially when produced and directed with care and malicious intent. Sunstein produces a detailed classification of lies evaluating the state of mind of a liar, the magnitude of harm, the likelihood of harm and the timing of harm. He also introduces the treatment of these different features of lies by a number of ethical systems.
I appreciated that the analysis of the problem involved not only the discussion of the concrete US court cases (which I have found really interesting and informative), but the author has turned to social science and psychology research explaining how people get involved in lying and how they react to the lies, defamation, doctored videos or deepfakes. This part is also explaining how we happen to accept lies and which ones in particular and why we engage in passing them on.
Though the whole book mainly looks into the principles of when and why the government and justice institutions should start controlling and deterring spread of falsehoods, the protection of free speech that may be harmed in the process never disappears from the context. The alternatives to coercion and court regulation are numerous and there are many instances when they can work more effectively in preventing misinformation, though there is a point when they are not enough. The suggested approach to governmental regulation related to the intent and the harm produced by falsehoods seems logical and reasonable. On the other hand, I totally agree that changing social norms that would deter spreading falsehoods would be much more reliable than court rulings. The question remains of how to achieve this change.
The book will be definitely of interest to legal and information science scholars and professionals. However, it should reach much wider public, because of its topic, accessible style and language, and most interesting stories that the author tells in the book.
Elena Maceviciute
University of Borås
October, 2021
How to cite this review
Maceviciute, E. (2021). Review of: Sunstein, Cass R. Liars: Falsehoods and free speech in an age of deception. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.. Information Research, 26(4), review no. R729 http://www.informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs729.html
Information Research is published four times a year by the University of Borås, Allégatan 1, 501 90 Borås, Sweden.