4 ms·

"Fake news" is the ultimate new-speak. Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion this type of law in a round about way makes it illegal to have opinions

by kirykl 10y ago

"Fake news" is the ultimate new-speak. Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion this type of law in a round about way makes it illegal to have opinions deemed fake by the government. There's accrediting organizations for journalists that's kind of a start. Legislating what people believe isnt solving the problem

swombat 10y ago
> Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion I don't think this statement is true. I googled "example of fake news" and the first article gave a good counter-argument: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-stories-zuckerberg_us_5829f34ee4b0c4b63b0da2ea http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-stori... > One example of fake news is this anti-Hillary Clinton story from the faux Denver Guardian, which declared in all caps: “FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE.” > Everything about the article was made up, from the city where the crime supposedly occurred (there is no Walkerville, Maryland), to the quote from “Walkerville Police Chief Pat Frederick.” (A town with a similar spelling ― Walkersville ― does exist, but doesn’t even have a police department.) This is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of simple fact. An organisation with the reach and revenues of facebook, which has become a de facto conduit for news on a scale unparalleled before, does have a responsibility to civil society to not corrode it from the inside by acting as a giant megaphone for completely made up crap.
- kirykl 10y ago
  Something like this is already covered under libel law (in the US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice Labeling it as fake news is too broad, hence new-speak. Call it what it is 'libel'
- bluecalm 10y ago
  I don't know man. Anyone can go out and shout random things to people on the street. Anyone can make a website and put made up stuff there or maybe a blog, or a a micro-blog, maybe Twitter account. It seems Facebook is organized around people and their "walls" where they can put w/e they please. If people want to follow such person and share their content it's really on those people not the platform provider.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >If people want to follow such person and share their content it's really on those people not the platform provider. The operative problem here is that Facebook has a monopoly or near-monopoly on being the platform. Monopolies come with responsibilities.
  - feketegy 10y ago
    Facebook is not just a platform provider in this case, because it has algorithms which decides what content will show up on users' news feed, therefore it's filtering content (even though it's a script). By this it could be said that the algorithm acts as an editor over content and in Germany this kind of filtering/moderation/censoring has laws and responsibilities.
throwaway5752 10y ago
"Fake news" is the ultimate new-speak Anecdote is not proof, but please recall the gentleman that brought an assault rifle to a pizzeria to investigate (widely circulated, even by the son of President-elect Trump's National Security Avisor [1]) claims that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the back of it [2]. It should be obvious to the stupidest person that Hillary Clinton is not running a child sex ring, let alone out of the back of some random DC pizzeria. How is it, then, that this person came to believe that and acted on it? 1: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/05/politics/mike-flynn-jr-son-pizza-gate-conspiracy-theory-donald-trump/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/05/politics/mike-flynn-jr-son-piz... 2: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-... edit: don't particularly care about downvotes, but to those of your downvoting this, you may want to introspect why you did so.
- bluecalm 10y ago
  I think the answer to that is extending slander and libel laws. If someone is spreading information about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring she should be able to sue for damages. I think that's the right way because people spreading those rumors are the one doing the damage not the people who run a platform which allows for sharing of information.
  - throwaway5752 10y ago
    Perhaps. You replied to my earlier comment, too, so let me answer that first. Your example was an excellent example of how many people can interpret the same event in multiple ways. I think that is fair. However, I think it's fair to subject that to the standard of deductive reasoning and prepositional logic (not all interpretations are valid). Ie, in your example, it's possible to ascribe differing motives to the UN vote since it's unknowable on some level... but it's not valid to deduce from it that Obama is a secret Muslim that wants to destroy America. Specifically to the point I was making, Bannon has spoken and written publically (as a sibling comment mentioned) about his objectives. It is knowable and not subject to unlimited speculation. To this comment, we've digressed from the Facebook/Germany point. It's complicated. To your point, was Clinton supposed to pursue libel across ten thousand fly-by-night websites cross-sourcing libel (sometimes across jurisdictions where it was not practical to pursue them)? It is a judicial DoS, in a sense. A legal system is a hackable set of rules, and someone did that in the US election, and I think Germany is smart to try to prevent a similar result domestically (though I am not sure if fining FB $.5M per incident is effective or ethical).
feketegy 10y ago
You're wrong, not governments will decide whether a news is fake or not, facts will.

by kirykl 10y ago

swombat 10y ago

> Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion I don't think this statement is true. I googled "example of fake news" and the first article gave a good counter-argument: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-stories-zuckerberg_us_5829f34ee4b0c4b63b0da2ea http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-stori... > One example of fake news is this anti-Hillary Clinton story from the faux Denver Guardian, which declared in all caps: “FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE.” > Everything about the article was made up, from the city where the crime supposedly occurred (there is no Walkerville, Maryland), to the quote from “Walkerville Police Chief Pat Frederick.” (A town with a similar spelling ― Walkersville ― does exist, but doesn’t even have a police department.) This is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of simple fact. An organisation with the reach and revenues of facebook, which has become a de facto conduit for news on a scale unparalleled before, does have a responsibility to civil society to not corrode it from the inside by acting as a giant megaphone for completely made up crap.

kirykl 10y ago
Something like this is already covered under libel law (in the US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice Labeling it as fake news is too broad, hence new-speak. Call it what it is 'libel'
bluecalm 10y ago
I don't know man. Anyone can go out and shout random things to people on the street. Anyone can make a website and put made up stuff there or maybe a blog, or a a micro-blog, maybe Twitter account. It seems Facebook is organized around people and their "walls" where they can put w/e they please. If people want to follow such person and share their content it's really on those people not the platform provider.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >If people want to follow such person and share their content it's really on those people not the platform provider. The operative problem here is that Facebook has a monopoly or near-monopoly on being the platform. Monopolies come with responsibilities.
- feketegy 10y ago
  Facebook is not just a platform provider in this case, because it has algorithms which decides what content will show up on users' news feed, therefore it's filtering content (even though it's a script). By this it could be said that the algorithm acts as an editor over content and in Germany this kind of filtering/moderation/censoring has laws and responsibilities.

throwaway5752 10y ago

"Fake news" is the ultimate new-speak Anecdote is not proof, but please recall the gentleman that brought an assault rifle to a pizzeria to investigate (widely circulated, even by the son of President-elect Trump's National Security Avisor [1]) claims that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the back of it [2]. It should be obvious to the stupidest person that Hillary Clinton is not running a child sex ring, let alone out of the back of some random DC pizzeria. How is it, then, that this person came to believe that and acted on it? 1: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/05/politics/mike-flynn-jr-son-pizza-gate-conspiracy-theory-donald-trump/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/05/politics/mike-flynn-jr-son-piz... 2: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-... edit: don't particularly care about downvotes, but to those of your downvoting this, you may want to introspect why you did so.

bluecalm 10y ago
I think the answer to that is extending slander and libel laws. If someone is spreading information about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring she should be able to sue for damages. I think that's the right way because people spreading those rumors are the one doing the damage not the people who run a platform which allows for sharing of information.
- throwaway5752 10y ago
  Perhaps. You replied to my earlier comment, too, so let me answer that first. Your example was an excellent example of how many people can interpret the same event in multiple ways. I think that is fair. However, I think it's fair to subject that to the standard of deductive reasoning and prepositional logic (not all interpretations are valid). Ie, in your example, it's possible to ascribe differing motives to the UN vote since it's unknowable on some level... but it's not valid to deduce from it that Obama is a secret Muslim that wants to destroy America. Specifically to the point I was making, Bannon has spoken and written publically (as a sibling comment mentioned) about his objectives. It is knowable and not subject to unlimited speculation. To this comment, we've digressed from the Facebook/Germany point. It's complicated. To your point, was Clinton supposed to pursue libel across ten thousand fly-by-night websites cross-sourcing libel (sometimes across jurisdictions where it was not practical to pursue them)? It is a judicial DoS, in a sense. A legal system is a hackable set of rules, and someone did that in the US election, and I think Germany is smart to try to prevent a similar result domestically (though I am not sure if fining FB $.5M per incident is effective or ethical).

feketegy 10y ago

You're wrong, not governments will decide whether a news is fake or not, facts will.