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> Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely because we have centuries of experience studying the effects of pollution on the environment

We also have centuries (even millennia) of experience studying the truth. Yet the problem of truth is still as hard as always. I don't see how could any amount of experience solve such fundamental problems.

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I don't think the issue at hand is truths and lies, it's the ability to both communicate with hundreds of millions of people easily while at the same time also being able to create smaller silos of group think with no restriction on geography.

The initial comment's argument is comparing "misinformation" with "pollution", since misinformation can now be massively broadcast to many people through the internet, causing ill effects.

The problem is differentiating between "information" and "misinformation" - which is exactly the issue of truth and lies, isn't it?

Otherwise, if you ignore the truthfulness of information, and judge only by the effects, you're walking a slippery slope towards censoring truth because "it's harmful".

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