Is it still wrong to spread misinformation even if it's only to troll people rather than harming them?
14.06.2025 05:06
Absolutely.
The legendary Franklin Veaux often asks questions about “NOFAP”, the belief that not masturbating will turn you into Superman (or something). As he keeps pointing out, the whole thing was a joke that was posted on 4chan or reddit (I forget which).
Now, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion wasn’t so much a troll as fake, but over a century later people still take it seriously even though it contains errors about Judaism that no Jew would make.
Similarly, the whole “sovereign citizen” movement (which we call OPCA up here in Canada) was also a joke where someone used a whole lot of pseudo-legal language (that’s the “P” in OPCA) to say you weren’t subject to any laws you didn’t agree to. Not a month goes by without someone believing in this nonsense.