PROVE IT.
It should be a basic Human Right that everybody, everywhere, should have the right to demand that anybody who makes any claim should be required to PROVE IT when asked, or otherwise to retract the claim.
@Pat
I'm starting to do that on mainstream social media. The silence after I ask for evidence is deafening.
At least, we need laws that empowers Truth in Parliament/Senate/Congress/House of Lords/etc. Such laws exist in the Judiciary - (can't make baseless claims - must back up with evidence upon request, else the claim is struck out/erased). Why not in the other two branches of Government as well?
Would also be great if there were Truth in Broadcast Media Laws (with actual teeth) so that the Media outlets aren't free to literally just be a Propaganda Mouthpiece for a specific political party. I mean the OCEANS of BULLSHIT that Rupert Murdoch's filthy lie-generating machines gush out 24/7 ... he has gotta be stopped before he convinces the great unwashed to burn all the books and hang all the scientists.
@soundwave
In democracies with strong freedom-of-speech rights, we already have that right. We can "demand" that people prove it, but they also have free-speech rights, so they can chose not to prove it if they want. Then we have the right to take what they say with a grain of salt.