I had an interesting conversation over a Dim Sum meal yesterday with a couple who have been friends for years (both, sadly, Oxford University graduates). It's my view on LIES. A lie is "something that is not true". I had a hard time convincing my friends that this does not concern or involve motive, interpretation or reason for telling a lie or printing a lie or broadcasting a lie. That is another question. Was it a mistake or misunderstanding or bad information or malicious - those questions are a totally different area. Eventually my friends were convinced but I found it disturbing that something so obvious (to me) would need explaining and justification to intelligent people.

If something is not true, it is a lie. WHY it was said or written or assumed is neither here nor there.

So do you think lies have become so common that most people cant tell the difference now?
Or that they dont care if its the truth or not?

No I think the problem is that most people now think lies include the reason for making them (as some definitions say). But essentially a lie is an untruth (a "falsehood") and why it was made is another question. Another example of how words, like laws, have become blurred. I mean, these days many people have never even met their "friends".