Reflective responsibility, political equality and the impact of false information on electoral systems within the political context

Abstract

Considering the technological innovations of the last few decades and their impacts on how society shares information, this study seeks to answer the following guiding question: To what degree and within which parameters can the government legitimately control the spread of false information, advanced through structures organized and funded by political actors, specifically for the purpose of gaining electoral advantages? The methodology employed in this research is fundamentally strategic, with the investigative process being exclusively supported by bibliographical sources. The theoretical framework for the research, through which the data is interpreted, is the thesis of the unity of value, developed by Ronald Dworkin. In its final considerations, the paper argues, based on the relation between the values of freedom, equality and democracy, as well as the conditions of legitimacy that must be observed by a just coercive government, that the restriction of freedom of expression in the context of political discourse, even if contaminated by false information, violates the dignity, through the prism of authenticity and self-respect, of all members of a community that accepts, in an integrated and coherent manner, the proposed interpretation of the values of political morality.