Key Takeaways
- Fake news and manipulated media spread rapidly and impact individuals in the criminal justice system significantly.
- Justice suffers as public narratives often prioritize falsehoods over facts, influencing jurors, judges, and law enforcement.
- The Right to Be Forgotten remains ineffective in practice, placing the burden on individuals to combat harmful online content.
- Deliberate misinformation thrives online, making it nearly impossible to erase false narratives without legal intervention.
- The consequences of misinformation create myriad challenges for journalists, survivors, and advocates, affecting free speech and accountability.
We’re living in an era where lies don’t just travel fast; they outperform the truth. Science tells us that fake news is more likely to spread faster, and it’s not a phenomenon we can blame on bots.
Fake news, manipulated media, selectively edited videos, and outright fabricated narratives now circulate with alarming speed. Once published, they’re scraped, reposted, archived, and algorithmically amplified across platforms that profit from outrage but disclaim responsibility for harm.
There is perhaps no case better to frame the discussion around, than that of Alex Pretti, where character assassinations have been carried out against him after his deeply troubling death in Minnesota.
For people entangled in the criminal legal system, be it defendants, witnesses, journalists, advocates, even victims like Alex, the consequences aren’t abstract. They’re permanent, searchable, and often devastating.
Fake News Isn’t Just a Media Problem. It’s a Justice Problem.
In criminal cases, public narrative matters more than courts like to admit. When false or manipulated content spreads:
- Jurors encounter it before voir dire
- Judges encounter it indirectly through “public sentiment”
- Employers, landlords, and schools treat it as fact
- Law enforcement decisions are influenced by public pressure
Even when charges are dismissed, cases are acquitted, or allegations are disproven, the digital record rarely updates itself. The media typically follows the case for the immediate press release drop from prosecutors or police anyway.
A headline travels farther than a correction.
A rumor can outlive a ruling.
Manipulated Media: The New Character Assassination Tool
Today’s misinformation isn’t always obvious. It includes:
- Edited videos stripped of context
- Screenshots missing timestamps or source verification
- AI-generated images, audio, and text
- Social media accounts posing as “news”
- Repetition of false claims until they appear credible
This isn’t something we can just consider “sloppy reporting” and move along; it’s weaponized distortion.
And once that distortion attaches itself to a person involved in a criminal matter, it becomes nearly impossible to separate truth from narrative, especially online. Seeing is believing, not verifying.
The “Right to Be Forgotten”: Powerful in Theory, Weak in Practice
The idea behind The Right to Be Forgotten is simple: People should not be permanently punished by outdated, irrelevant, or false information.
In practice, it’s anything but simple.
In the U.S., there is no broad, enforceable right to compel removal of harmful online content, even when it is false, misleading, or disproven. Instead, individuals face:
- Platform reporting systems that favor volume over truth
- Companies shielded by Section 230
- Search engines that treat virality as relevance
- Years-long legal battles for takedowns
When false content is posted intentionally, maliciously, or repeatedly, the burden shifts entirely to the harmed person to fight it, often at significant financial and emotional cost.
When Falsehoods Are Deliberate, Forgetting Becomes Impossible
Here’s the part that rarely gets discussed: if online clickbait outlets, who place their entire business model on racking up views, filling a page with ads, etc., are willing to fabricate, manipulate, or knowingly spread falsehoods, they are highly unlikely to voluntarily remove them.
Which means:
- Harmful content doesn’t fade; it metastasizes or lies in wait
- Retractions in one place cannot undo screenshots or mirrors
- Algorithms don’t care about truth, only engagement
Without a legal intervention, like subpoenas, injunctions, court orders, false narratives can often remain online indefinitely. If left unaddressed, the result can be a permanent digital punishment without a conviction.
Why This Is Especially Dangerous in Criminal Contexts
The criminal legal system already struggles with fairness, presumption of innocence, and equal protection. Add manipulated media, and the imbalance worsens.
People are judged:
- Before evidence is presented
- Outside courtroom rules
- Without standards of proof
- Without recourse for correction
When misinformation becomes permanent, justice becomes conditional on resources, not truth. It reminds me of the days of tabloid media, where it seemed like the grocery store publications were getting sued pretty consistently. The problem then becomes which source is the origin? What becomes of the other entities who pick it up? What do you do when it’s spread like wildfire?
The Chilling Effect on Journalism and Advocacy
Independent journalists, survivors, and advocates are especially vulnerable. Speaking out can trigger:
- Coordinated campaigns
- Fake “counter-narratives”
- Selective leaks framed as facts
- Digital harassment disguised as commentary
The threat isn’t just reputational; it’s silencing. When false content sticks forever, the cost of telling the truth skyrockets. Hence, the need for improved anti-SLAPP protections for legitimate journalism, not just protections for who has the most money or who yells the loudest. Fair should actually be, fair.
Toward Accountability, Not Erasure
This isn’t about scrubbing history or hiding accountability. It’s about distinguishing fact from fiction. Real reform requires:
- Stronger takedown standards for proven falsehoods
- Conversely, stronger protections for truth
- Pathways to correct or remove outright malicious content
- Platform accountability when harm is documented
The internet shouldn’t function as an unregulated sentencing enhancement.
Justice Can’t Survive Permanent Lies
A system that allows falsehoods to live forever, while truth requires a court order and fact finding, is not neutral. It’s tilted. Until we confront how fake news and manipulated media infect criminal cases, journalism, and public trust, the damage will continue quietly, invisibly, and relentlessly.
The internet may never forget, but justice cannot afford to remember lies as facts.
