Is it still wrong to spread misinformation even if it's only to troll people rather than harming them?
13.06.2025 02:05
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).
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.
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.