This case is about public officials suing the press.
In my humble opinion, it should be perfectly possible for citizens to sue their politicians for being lied to. Eventually they are supposed to act in our interest and without real information, the democratic process is undermined.
Civilians should be able to trust the elected leaders' words.
> This case is about public officials suing the press.
In this case, Facebook is "the press". Keep in mind that there is no legal definition of what it means to be "the press" — rightfully so. NYT v Sullivan is particularly relevant because, in the case, NYT carried out a full page ad by supporters of MLK Jr containing several factual inaccuracies, such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether or not students had been expelled for participating. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that, unless you can prove "actual malice", the free dissemination of information is protected by the Constitution.
Those that post on FB are already held liable. The whole point is that Facebook Inc isn't liable. If you were to post the text of the first chapter of Harry Potter in a FB post, Facebook Inc would not be liable for copyright violation, it would be the individual (or association) that posted it.
> In my humble opinion, it should be perfectly possible for citizens to sue their politicians for being lied to.
It already is possible to do this, it's just practically infeasible. If you are able to prove "actual malice" — I.e. if you can prove that a politician knowingly lied to their constituents, they can already be held liable for damages. The burden to prove this is high enough that you would need to find documented evidence that the individual in question knew the truth and specifically lied. Remember, it is not illegal to make political promises that you can't keep, and it is not illegal to be publicly wrong about the facts.
> Civilians should be able to trust the elected leaders' words.
No disagreements there. The only issue is that the First Amendment makes it essentially impossible regulate how those words are disseminated.
