re enacting the Fairness in Reporting act would be a good start

Educate our children. Focus on why facts matter. Teach compassion.

The 1st Amendment is a tricky thing wording wise, the only type of speech that is not protected by this amendment is speech that directly incites specific violence against another person or entity.

But in a common society, there are unspelled out limits that often get ignored. For instance all individuals have an unspoken responsibility to protect the "fitness" of our way if life and Constitution. That is if they want it to survive another 100 years. That means realizing that some speech is inherently unhealthy and diminishes the "fitness" of our society.

Organizations like FOX, Info-Wars, Qanon. Rush Limbaugh, and One Nation News are undermining the strength and fitness of the Nation with their outlandish conspiracy theories. They are teaching the less educated and less discerning members of are society to believe in unrealistic explanations that are devoid of fact and evidence. To believe in tribal fantasies and distrust traditional elements our society that have served to protect us and our way of life. They have exceeded the reasonable expectation for the freedom of speech and are endangering the "fitness" of our society and our Constitition.

Yes, they can vote Democrat - so hard and long - they can begin to demand the return of this:

“The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was—in the FCC's view—honest, equitable, and balanced.”

Fact-check on the internet., Then vote.

Laws can help. Something akin to yelling fire in a crowded theater when there isn't one while a stampede ensues. Fix yelled there isn't a fire while there was one and people died. That should be illegal. That is not news, that is putting people in danger.

Bringing back the fairness doctrine will help. Not allowing entertainment to label themselves as news like Fox and Infowars does. Jones was in divorce court telling the judge that it was a character only to go on the radio to say the opposite. He perjured himself, but no consequences.

Actual accountability will also help. It'll take attacking from numerous angles from subtle to blatant will help. How can we live in a world where no sources are trusted? We can't. Accountability will make it too costly to constantly lie.

There are others as well, but I'm out of Schlitz at the moment.

I would say no and think that a more productive pursuit would be to acknowledge that humans have the tendency to latch on to ideas that aren't necessarily substantiated. In every type of group I've been in, I've seen it. It doesn't matter if people are religious or atheist, political or apathetic, or anything else. Everyone does it.

The biggest lie to look out for is thinking that you've gotten past it yourself.

If I have factual evidence or a reasonable argument to refute a given comment I do not hesitate to present it immediately. Also, if I find something that disturbs me I will note it publicly and provide information/evidence that clearly shows it is false/misleading/malicious.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, the Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels. This media/news control has worked, I think they won.

History teaches a harsh lesson here, the technology and details of it all may be new, but unbalanced gap between power and no power, wealth and poverty always swings back and forth in history. And it is going to take a horrific collapse and revolution, and/or a Civil war or world war, to get America and/or humanity back on sustainable social/economic footing again.

And, civilizations resetting has happened hundreds of times in history. This will just be the first time its happened to a nation with more guns than people, and the largest military in history (with nukes). And I think the average American citizen is fatter and dumber than those of previous fallen empires, so it could be horrific here - we are completely reliant on an incredibly complex supply chain.

Make hate speech illegal.

Vote for Democrats!

Begin with sensitizing the people closest to you.

Decriminalization of cannabis will decrease anxiety and the thirst for drama. The conspiracies will have to compete with the individual's imagination. Support science education and the exclusion of proselytizing within the public square. Call out violations of these norms. Support CFI and NCSE and the like.

Has mainstream media got some credibility back?

Vote for better people in government, locally, state, nationally.

Education is the solution

Set an example of leadership by thinking for yourself outside the box, and boxed sets of ideas propagated by ALL groups.

Give others the credit for being able, even if less able, to reason for themselves. It is our right and theirs. Who among us is so sagacious as to deserve the privilege of censoring what others are exposed to?

Freedom's price is often that the majority won't be a well thought out one. Mistakes educate, though not as well.

One of the biggest problems I see right now is caused by the Q-Anon infodemic. Look that up and you will see anything from A to Z about our pandemic and all that is going on right now. People keep adding to it because they want to have all the answers and some of this nonsense fits in with what they want to believe with a lot of that going back into their religion, politics, etc. It seems to me that our current regime and others that plant disinformation are working overtime on this. Educate yourselves and be aware. There is zero truth in Q-Anon.

Each one, teach one... Unfortunately, the stupid do this also...

I think the problem is too big and it won't get fixed until after something bad happens first. I just hope it isn't too bad, and I'm grateful people like us are aware it's happening. Gives me a little hope.

Thorough and complete secondary education.

I have advocated for the browser extension NewsGuard :

[newsguardtech.com]

. . .but it is now subscription based -- it still does give 'green', 'grey', 'red' indications, or none if the site has not-yet been rated on their nine journalistic categories.

It does seem hopeless.
But the internet is just in its infancy. Though it seems to have made things worse for now, I think that we will eventually have a taxonomy of awareness and it could be an amazing tool for "truth".

Accept that it will be a long job and try to emulate our fellow freethinkers who made them sweat a little so that you get them to sweat a lot! We have strengths the other side have not yet taken seriously.

Your poll lacks a third choice.

Consider natural selection. Can you imagine a more wasteful process? Taking on your "monster" would be less wasteful, but still too wasteful .