Das Wahrheitsgebot des Grundgesetzes

Around the world, the truth is under attack. Private citizens spread lies on a scale and at a speed unimaginable before the emergence of social media. And in a post-Trump era, even governments and public officials use disinformation as a tool in their efforts to shape the political discourse. The following article advocates for a new interpretation of the German Constitution to defend our democracy against those developments. It establishes a far reaching »truth statute« which would effectively bar German officials from engaging in false speech themselves. The statute would also require the state to combat false speech made by private citizens under certain circumstances. This way, it could play a profound role in ending the fake news epidemic that has infected civic communication on social media platforms.