I'd gladly take a world with disinformation over a world in which an unaccountable third party determines what is truth, and therefore okay to say. I can work around the first problem with some effort much easier than the second one.
We already have that - and have had for centuries - the people who control the press control what gets presented as "truth". Look at Fox or any other Murdoch property for a perfect example.
(cf "History is written by the winners" for another angle.)
There is competition in establishing the truth. Not as much as I'd like, but a decent amount. Reducing that competition would be bad.
They're bad we get it, Id rather be able to hear how bad they are in the light. Who was accountable when we spread lies about WMDs in Iraq? That caused magnitudes of more damage than these groups, yet no one is held accountable even with Public figures. Do you want everyone accountable for misinformation silenced or just those you disagree with?
The Downside of the common man having too little oversight is more people believe things that aren't true (Flat Earth), and the downside to too much oversite is people believe different things that aren't true (PRISM, Nayirah testimony, Tuskegee Syphilis Study). The trade off of which is worse varies, but generally most individuals are fairly powerless but there are many of them, and organizations are few but wield much more influence.
We see a problem, we try to fix it.
They’re not unaccountable. This whole thing is about holding them accountable!
If they were completely unaccountable then they wouldn’t do any of this. Why is Facebook taking action against QAnon now when it hasn’t in the past year? Do you think they haven’t seen the polling data for the president, house, and senate races? They’re preparing to fight for their life as a conglomerated monopoly.
What does holding them accountable look like to you?
I get that, now, they've hoisted themselves by their own petard after years of inconsistent policies and enforcement, but I mean in a general sense.
>What does holding them accountable look like to you?
The opening paragraph of section 230 of the CDA, to wit:
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider"
There be far worse dragons than disinformation down the other roads. Let's take this to its logical conclusion - you've got people on the left upset about "conspiracy theories" (which is, itself, a pejorative term with problematic origins rooted in thought control), you've got people on the right upset about "bias" against their stances.
When both sides of the political aisle are demanding tighter control over speech for any reason, the intended result should terrify the hell out of you.
The problem you speak of is not "people say false things" (which is not solvable), the problem should rather be seen as "people demand the ability to censor people they disagree with". The solution to that problem is telling both sides to pound sand and take responsibility for their own beliefs, not foisting that responsibility off onto third parties in a way that necessarily restricts freedom of speech.