27 ms·

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail

by moksly 7y ago

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and write about them as such, but you can’t make up things. This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something.

Kalium 7y ago
The question is always if the cure is worth than the disease. It is easy to fall into the Politicians Syllogism, and wind up adopting a terrifyingly bad policy out of a sense that something must be done*. Choosing to wait and observe is always a viable choice, to be considered alongside all forms of intervention.
pojzon 7y ago
> and when they do fail they admit it and apologise We have those laws in Poland too. They lie on front page and apologise with small font on the last page.
- red_trumpet 7y ago
  I wonder what happened if the apology had to be as prominent as the false fact. Imagine a newspaper saying "WE LIED YESTERDAY" on the front-page :D
  - RaiseProfits 7y ago
    Oh wow we could have avoided the entire Iraq war!
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Sounds like insurance companies with fine prints.
- endymi0n 7y ago
  Interestingly enough, in Germany you are forced to use the same page and layout, leading to sometimes very visible retractions... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/9c/Bild_Gegendarstellung.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/9c/Bild_Gegendar... If you ask me, that‘s a good thing. If the stakes of an ad campaign with fake news or hate speech would be having to run a disproval campaign of the same size, on the same audience (if you are proven wrong) — I‘d be fine with it. Political ads weren‘t the problem. A complete and utter lack of regulation for the medium was.
  - rasz 7y ago
    Or you know, keep the lie because "publicly apologize for using the inaccurate “Polish Death Camps” phrase does not apply in Germany as it would curb freedom of speech." https://polandin.com/38606816/apology-for-polish-death-camps-not-applicable-in-germany-top-court https://polandin.com/38606816/apology-for-polish-death-camps...
    - endymi0n 7y ago
      Hey, count me in for solving this one gracefully! https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.der-postillon.com%2F2019%2F09%2Freparationen-polen.html https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
      - rasz 7y ago
        This is German copycat of Onion you linked :)
beaner 7y ago
It is very easy to print things that are true but still have a bias. For example, printing things that are true but good about one political party, while printing things that are true but bad about another, is a bias. Almost every news medium has some kind of bias this way, and I think it affects their impact more than if they simply tell lies or not. (Counter to the current worry, it seems to me that outright lies in mainstream publications are actually somewhat rare. When they happen they are generally corrected. Though there is a recent trend of rushing to publication to appease an overly emotive audience, getting things wrong, and then having to correct days later, after everyone's already been influenced. NYT especially.) This used to be somewhat addressed in the US television segment by taking it even a step further, and requiring news shows to not only be truthful, but represent both sides of controversial issues. It was called the Fairness Doctrine [1], but it was revoked in 1985. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
sacrificedcapon 7y ago
You do realize that saudi arabia, china, russia, etc all have laws in place to hold newspaper editors responsible for printing "truth" right? > This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. What makes you think you are a well-informed and critical thinking society? Don't most danes think alike just like most saudis, chinese, russians, etc. Don't most danes think and believe whatever news/propaganda tell them to believe just like saudis, chinese, russians, etc? > This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. And? Did the world end? Do you realize that there was a time when it was "truth" that the earth was flat? Do you realize that there was a time when "pro-vaxxers" were ridiculed as much as anti-vaxxers are ridiculed now? If people like you were in power, we'd never have any progress. I'm not an anti-vaxxer or a flat-earther. The easiest way to discredit them is with speech. More speech, not less. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And free speech is the best antidote to falsehoods.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- moksly 7y ago
  > And? Did the world end? No, but people died needlessly.
- archgoon 7y ago
  > You do realize that saudi arabia, china, russia, etc all have laws in place to hold newspaper editors responsible for printing "truth" right? Yes, and Denmark too. Also, the United States has laws about lying in print as well, see for example libel laws.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    But we don't. The Russian government does not need such laws to cause trouble. Boris Nemtsov got shot in broad daylight in the centre of Moscow.
- CraigJPerry 7y ago
ralusek 7y ago
The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a true fact. So not only are facts capable of telling a narrative, but it gets much more complicated once you start introducing conclusions. If you say "A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. American police are being racially discriminatory when killing civilians." This is a fact and a conclusion, and most news consists of facts and conclusions. Both the fact and the conclusion serve a particular narrative, and that's an issue. The problem is that a news organization with a different set of objectives, or simply operating under a different framework, would be entirely capable of coming to an entirely different conclusion, or introduce entirely different facts alongside it. "A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. However, despite making up only 13% of the population, black Americans committed 36% of homicides, with an overall much higher representation in violent crime across the board. Only 5% of police shootings are with an unarmed victim, with the rest resulting from an armed altercation." Different narrative. In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not want to be making those decisions. And to be frank, Europe should probably be more wary of that.
- waqas- 7y ago
  This is the most important comment. Whenever i hear about someones saying that "XYZ should do something about fake news" i understand that they really dont understand the depth of the problem. Solving "fake news" is a non-trivial problem and no single arbiter of truth can tackle it, Facebook, twitter etc are claiming about "cracking down of fake news" but all that is just hogwash.
  - 7y ago
ekianjo 7y ago
printing truth? So they print blank pages?
ibeckermayer 7y ago
“This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years.” Ironic.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
siruncledrew 7y ago
> They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. Sigh, I wish news could work out in a level-headed, respectable manner like that. Instead we have “news” reduced to opinions-of-the-day, fat middle fingers shoved in faces to rile up attention (figuratively speaking), and clever ways of turning current events into enticing blockbuster rollercoasters of reporting with crafty “news-scaping”. (Not all news is like this, FWIW. When information has to be reluctantly peddled for a pittance, like news media is stuck with begrudgingly trying to get people to buy their holiday fruitcakes, then the etiquette of pride in truth gets tossed).
erfgh 7y ago
There are such laws everywhere in the world buddy, not just in Denmark.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
piokoch 7y ago
Truth. Yes. Problem is that sometimes the truth is very, very inconvenient for someone (important), then it is forbidden, called lies or conspiracy theory or hate speech. Before Snowden we had some conspiracy theories that NSA is spying on everyone, but those who claimed that were ridiculed. Before the communism fell the truth that Polish officers were murdered in Katyn forest by Soviets was considered a lie (official "truth" was that Germans did that) - this truth was so annoying that for a long time (until 1980ties) even Western countries official policy preferred lies only to maintain good relations with Soviet Union. For a quite a long time (till 1960ies) people thought that this is a good idea to check if shoes fit using X-rays. The truth of that times was that X-rays used in that way are safe. And I can go on like this for hours. People lie, people make mistakes, people have shady interests and motivations, human knowledge is restricted. If we enforce official "truth" we never learn the truth. Maybe this will help to keep societies in peace (in the Orwellian way). Communists tried that, luckily they failed. Chinese half Communism half Confucianism tries that now, we will see how it will end up.
- n0rbwah 7y ago
  If you can't back up your claim with hard evidence, it's hardly an objective truth. Hence NSA spying being "conspiracy theory" before Snowden.
Kiro 7y ago
Denmark? You mean one of the least feminist countries in the developed world? Not to mention the openly racist narrative about immigrants in public media. Compared to other Scandinavian countries the Danish media is extremely toxic so not sure about portraiting it as a role model in "well informed and critical thinking".
- mikkelam 7y ago
  Not sure what "least feministic" means but it's also the 2nd best place in the world to be a woman [1]. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-women https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-women
  - Kiro 7y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/10/and-the-least-feminist-nation-in-the-world-is-denmark https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/10/and-the...
    - belorn 7y ago
      "just one in six Danes consider themselves a feminist" "The Best Countries for Women is a perception-based ranking based on the responses of nearly 9,000 women who filled out surveys for the 2019 Best Countries rankings. The ranking is derived from a compilation of five equally weighted country attributes: care about human rights, gender equality, income equality, progress and safety." Combined they make the statement that you can label yourself as non-feminist and still care about human rights, gender equality, income equality, progress and safety.
      - Kiro 7y ago
        Labelling yourself a non-feminist and truly caring about gender equality is a paradox unless you have an incorrect view of what feminism is.
        7y ago
acd 7y ago
The recommendations algorithms have access to all our past interactions with these sites. They know exactly what we like and dislike. In order to keep us hooked they keep recommending content that we will continue to watch. There needs to be regulation of this both for news and mental health reasons. What happens when a recommendation algorithm in order to increase ad revenue keeps recommending depressing videos to a depressed person? We also get politicians which the one who gets the most attention wins elections, because internet is an attention economy. It does not mean that getting as much attention as a possible for a politician means that you have good intentions. Never in our past have companies have had access to information which keeps us mentally hooked to their services. There need to be some kind of safety standards.
- intended 7y ago
  This is the tip of the problem. What if new science tells us that seeing certain types of news results in X condition, 20% of the time ? Social networks are stuck.
vorpalhex 7y ago
> This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. Are you literally blaming YouTube for flat earthers in Denmark? The issue is that all regulators are human, and all humans have biases. No man is fit to play the censor.
- deadbunny 7y ago
  > Are you literally blaming YouTube for flat earthers in Denmark? Given the modern flat earthed movement was essentially grown on YouTube why wouldn't it effect people around the globe? Is YouTube banned in Denmark?
- mensetmanusman 7y ago
  Many of the flat earthers I have interacted with are actually doing it tongue and cheek as performance. It is a meme/troll many levels deep if you look into it.
ijiiijji1 7y ago
In a time of universal deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act. - Orwell
kolla 7y ago
Well they can print a full page lie and then the day after print a "sorry" at the bottom of the page. At least that's what they do here in Sweden.
throwaway744678 7y ago
This sounds like a nice, but dangerous idea: who decides what the truth is? Obviously some statements are blatantly false (2 + 2 = 5), but those don't need to be forbidden by a law: just ignore it, or laugh at it, and let the paper editing this lose its readership (or reduce it to the community of 2+2=5- believers). The actual matter is for controversial statements. I very much prefer those statements to be allowed, discussed, debunked if needed, than outright forbidden. In liberal democracies, the press is generally considered to be a needed counterpower (along with the establish executive, legislative and judicial powers of the state). Putting it under the control of the judicial power kind of weakens it.
flexie 7y ago
Danish lawyer here. We have rather usual defamation laws regarding libel and slander. I am not sure they differ from other European or American laws in any way that hold Danish media to higher standards. Even publishing true information can be a violation of our criminal code, for example certain information about private life or about past criminal convictions. All in all, though, I believe we have wide freedom of press and freedom of speech not unlike what they have in the rest of Europe and in reality not that different from what they have in the US. Yes, we do have a media liability law which makes the editor (or even the journalist or the publication) liable for defamation in the content and for publishing certain information about a person's private life. The effect is that Danish publications are forced to worry about defamation against persons or corporations, or groups of people such as certain statements regarding religions, ethnicity etc or about information regarding persons' private life. But apart from what I describe above, newspapers can publish more or less whatever they want without fearing criminal or tort liability. They mostly have to fear ridicule. A Danish editor will not be held liable if his newspaper writes wrong facts about the unemployment rate, crime, business climate, taxes or just about anything else that is in the news. I believe the answer to why Danish media still have a decent standard despite free online news and Google and Facebook getting the ad money, is found in the subsidies. Virtually all large media in Denmark are either public entities or private entities that are heavily subsidized. By far the largest Danish media is the national radio and TV station. All the large newspapers receive huge subsidies. They simply still have budgets to pay for journalism. Here is a list of the recipients with amounts: https://slks.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/Skrevne_medier/Redaktionel_produktionsstoette/Tilskudsmodtagere/2019/2019._Liste_over_tilskudsmodtagere_-_foreloebigt_tilskud_Juni.pdf https://slks.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/S...
- dariosalvi78 7y ago
  That's veeery different than having a law that obliges news to say the truth!!!!
kmlx 7y ago
> This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. i assume this is sarcasm, as society has historically been mostly illiterate and unschooled. right now is when we are the most informed in the history of humankind.
- kmlx 7y ago
  for people downvoting, the great "schooling of society" started in the 1940s-50s: https://ourworldindata.org/literacy https://ourworldindata.org/literacy till then most people around the world didn't know how to read and write. my own eastern european country had an illiteracy rate of 95% in 1920.
Xelbair 7y ago
You can present facts differently to manipulate opinion - even simple things like percentage vs percentile, or increases chances by vs to - and even if they lie, the correction won't be reach everyone who read the original article. Then there are opinion pieces - which by definition are opinion not facts. I seriously have no good idea how to regulate that: international or national certifications are bound to be abused(lobbying in case of former, national interest in case of latter) and current system is absolutely dogshit. Honestly it is because all news outlets optimize for one thing only - money - and money nowadays comes from one thing mostly: selling ads, or to be exact - selling access to serving ads to people with specific interests. As long as selling ads en masse is the most profitable options the current system will exist. Clickbait/Yellow journalism will thrive as long as it's only purpose is to attract attention.
kaolti 7y ago
The idea that we can mandate people telling the truth is laughable. The reason it seems to work in Denmark is probably because honesty is a social norm there. Secondly, there is no absolute, objective truth and there never will be. The best we can do is to individually strive for telling the truth and hope for the best.
- sjy 7y ago
  You accept that honesty could plausibly be a social norm in some countries, yet you think it's laughable that the law might play a role in establishing and upholding that norm?
  - kaolti 7y ago
    That's exactly right. I'm not contesting laws playing SOME role, but in the grand scheme of things they don't uphold norms.
ohduran 7y ago
I can twist that, and indeed I do, by quoting somebody telling a lie. I'm positive infotainments do it all the time: such and such people said that the Earth is flat because so and so. People are so gullible, and some would argue that if they fall for things like that, it's on them. In my opinion, Twitter is getting into a muddy situation with this: what is "political", what is "advertising"... and what is "paid", are all terms that could have different interpretation. One could argue that Twitter may have just said "hey you, if this is illegal, send a court order and will take it down, otherwise everything stays", forcing governments to actually define what goes and what doesn't, instead of relying on for-profit companies to tell us what we can see and what we can't. But that train departed so long ago.
meisterbrendan 7y ago
Can you talk more about how those laws work in Denmark? I’m extremely interested in the idea that a society has incentivized both a robust free press and accountability to speak the truth... If that is the case it seems like those lessons would be very useful to democracies the world over.
dariosalvi78 7y ago
The definition of truth is quite a complicated one because truth is substantially a social construct. I wonder how this law works in practice. The main problem about social platforms, IMHO is not rubbish information, that's everywhere including printed press. The problem is plurality. Internet was supposed to actually solve this issue, but centralised, obscure and algorithmically controlled echo chambers have reintroduced it. The problem is, as always, when you put too much power into the hands of one entity...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tsmarsh 7y ago
The Guardian has the motto: “Comment is free, facts are sacred” During the rush to digital a section was launched “facts are sacred” Hahhahahah No it was “Comment is free”, that is what generated clicks and ad revenue
Jestar342 7y ago
The UK have self-regulating press. sigh
mnky9800n 7y ago
Information flows freely across borders. I'm not sure it can be regulated unless the borders stop mattering as much.
ashelmire 7y ago
> I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something. Why should it be treated any differently than other media? What we need is a return of the Fairness Doctrine in the US (and something similar to the EU) and application of the policy to social media advertising and news outlets. It won't stop foreign psy-ops, but it will stop a lot of the internal-originating lies and deception.
buboard 7y ago
A bit too dramatic. Most places have libel laws, denmark is no exception. Twitter is not a newspaper but a platform. Most news are commentary on tweets anyway. After banning political paid ads (the burden of truth of which falls on twitter, since they are the ones doing the publishing), twitter is even less a publisher and more a platform.
r00fus 7y ago
> I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something. Why doesn't the laws apply for Facebook? Ads are something they are profiting from, therefore implying involvement and thus Has Facebook reached the point where they could be fined for simply hosting untrue content? They curate and don't show everything so the argument of being just a "market of ideas" rings untrue.
naasking 7y ago
> In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. The problem is, who gets to define what's truthful and how do you quantify the bar for "truthfulness"? This is a deep philosophical question that doesn't really have a satisfactory solution at this point. Some cases are "obvious", but laws shouldn't be written with just the easy cases in mind. > This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. This is incorret. Anti-vaxxers and anti-vax protests have existed since the inception of vaccines back in the 1800s [1]. Flat earthers for longer. It's a convenient narrative that the internet somehow created these anti-science movements, or somehow spread them, but that's not really supported by facts. Celebrities like Jenny McCarthy arguably spread that message far more than people talking with each other on Facebook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy

by moksly 7y ago

Kalium 7y ago

The question is always if the cure is worth than the disease. It is easy to fall into the Politicians Syllogism, and wind up adopting a terrifyingly bad policy out of a sense that something must be done*. Choosing to wait and observe is always a viable choice, to be considered alongside all forms of intervention.

pojzon 7y ago

> and when they do fail they admit it and apologise We have those laws in Poland too. They lie on front page and apologise with small font on the last page.

red_trumpet 7y ago
I wonder what happened if the apology had to be as prominent as the false fact. Imagine a newspaper saying "WE LIED YESTERDAY" on the front-page :D
- RaiseProfits 7y ago
  Oh wow we could have avoided the entire Iraq war!
ekianjo 7y ago
Sounds like insurance companies with fine prints.
endymi0n 7y ago
Interestingly enough, in Germany you are forced to use the same page and layout, leading to sometimes very visible retractions... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/9c/Bild_Gegendarstellung.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/9c/Bild_Gegendar... If you ask me, that‘s a good thing. If the stakes of an ad campaign with fake news or hate speech would be having to run a disproval campaign of the same size, on the same audience (if you are proven wrong) — I‘d be fine with it. Political ads weren‘t the problem. A complete and utter lack of regulation for the medium was.
- rasz 7y ago
  Or you know, keep the lie because "publicly apologize for using the inaccurate “Polish Death Camps” phrase does not apply in Germany as it would curb freedom of speech." https://polandin.com/38606816/apology-for-polish-death-camps-not-applicable-in-germany-top-court https://polandin.com/38606816/apology-for-polish-death-camps...
  - endymi0n 7y ago
    Hey, count me in for solving this one gracefully! https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.der-postillon.com%2F2019%2F09%2Freparationen-polen.html https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
    - rasz 7y ago
      This is German copycat of Onion you linked :)

beaner 7y ago

It is very easy to print things that are true but still have a bias. For example, printing things that are true but good about one political party, while printing things that are true but bad about another, is a bias. Almost every news medium has some kind of bias this way, and I think it affects their impact more than if they simply tell lies or not. (Counter to the current worry, it seems to me that outright lies in mainstream publications are actually somewhat rare. When they happen they are generally corrected. Though there is a recent trend of rushing to publication to appease an overly emotive audience, getting things wrong, and then having to correct days later, after everyone's already been influenced. NYT especially.) This used to be somewhat addressed in the US television segment by taking it even a step further, and requiring news shows to not only be truthful, but represent both sides of controversial issues. It was called the Fairness Doctrine [1], but it was revoked in 1985. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

sacrificedcapon 7y ago

You do realize that saudi arabia, china, russia, etc all have laws in place to hold newspaper editors responsible for printing "truth" right? > This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. What makes you think you are a well-informed and critical thinking society? Don't most danes think alike just like most saudis, chinese, russians, etc. Don't most danes think and believe whatever news/propaganda tell them to believe just like saudis, chinese, russians, etc? > This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. And? Did the world end? Do you realize that there was a time when it was "truth" that the earth was flat? Do you realize that there was a time when "pro-vaxxers" were ridiculed as much as anti-vaxxers are ridiculed now? If people like you were in power, we'd never have any progress. I'm not an anti-vaxxer or a flat-earther. The easiest way to discredit them is with speech. More speech, not less. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And free speech is the best antidote to falsehoods.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
moksly 7y ago
> And? Did the world end? No, but people died needlessly.
archgoon 7y ago
> You do realize that saudi arabia, china, russia, etc all have laws in place to hold newspaper editors responsible for printing "truth" right? Yes, and Denmark too. Also, the United States has laws about lying in print as well, see for example libel laws.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  But we don't. The Russian government does not need such laws to cause trouble. Boris Nemtsov got shot in broad daylight in the centre of Moscow.
CraigJPerry 7y ago

ralusek 7y ago

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a true fact. So not only are facts capable of telling a narrative, but it gets much more complicated once you start introducing conclusions. If you say "A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. American police are being racially discriminatory when killing civilians." This is a fact and a conclusion, and most news consists of facts and conclusions. Both the fact and the conclusion serve a particular narrative, and that's an issue. The problem is that a news organization with a different set of objectives, or simply operating under a different framework, would be entirely capable of coming to an entirely different conclusion, or introduce entirely different facts alongside it. "A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. However, despite making up only 13% of the population, black Americans committed 36% of homicides, with an overall much higher representation in violent crime across the board. Only 5% of police shootings are with an unarmed victim, with the rest resulting from an armed altercation." Different narrative. In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not want to be making those decisions. And to be frank, Europe should probably be more wary of that.

waqas- 7y ago
This is the most important comment. Whenever i hear about someones saying that "XYZ should do something about fake news" i understand that they really dont understand the depth of the problem. Solving "fake news" is a non-trivial problem and no single arbiter of truth can tackle it, Facebook, twitter etc are claiming about "cracking down of fake news" but all that is just hogwash.
- 7y ago

ekianjo 7y ago

printing truth? So they print blank pages?

ibeckermayer 7y ago

“This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years.” Ironic.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

siruncledrew 7y ago

> They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. Sigh, I wish news could work out in a level-headed, respectable manner like that. Instead we have “news” reduced to opinions-of-the-day, fat middle fingers shoved in faces to rile up attention (figuratively speaking), and clever ways of turning current events into enticing blockbuster rollercoasters of reporting with crafty “news-scaping”. (Not all news is like this, FWIW. When information has to be reluctantly peddled for a pittance, like news media is stuck with begrudgingly trying to get people to buy their holiday fruitcakes, then the etiquette of pride in truth gets tossed).

erfgh 7y ago

There are such laws everywhere in the world buddy, not just in Denmark.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

piokoch 7y ago

Truth. Yes. Problem is that sometimes the truth is very, very inconvenient for someone (important), then it is forbidden, called lies or conspiracy theory or hate speech. Before Snowden we had some conspiracy theories that NSA is spying on everyone, but those who claimed that were ridiculed. Before the communism fell the truth that Polish officers were murdered in Katyn forest by Soviets was considered a lie (official "truth" was that Germans did that) - this truth was so annoying that for a long time (until 1980ties) even Western countries official policy preferred lies only to maintain good relations with Soviet Union. For a quite a long time (till 1960ies) people thought that this is a good idea to check if shoes fit using X-rays. The truth of that times was that X-rays used in that way are safe. And I can go on like this for hours. People lie, people make mistakes, people have shady interests and motivations, human knowledge is restricted. If we enforce official "truth" we never learn the truth. Maybe this will help to keep societies in peace (in the Orwellian way). Communists tried that, luckily they failed. Chinese half Communism half Confucianism tries that now, we will see how it will end up.

n0rbwah 7y ago
If you can't back up your claim with hard evidence, it's hardly an objective truth. Hence NSA spying being "conspiracy theory" before Snowden.

Kiro 7y ago

Denmark? You mean one of the least feminist countries in the developed world? Not to mention the openly racist narrative about immigrants in public media. Compared to other Scandinavian countries the Danish media is extremely toxic so not sure about portraiting it as a role model in "well informed and critical thinking".

mikkelam 7y ago
Not sure what "least feministic" means but it's also the 2nd best place in the world to be a woman [1]. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-women https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-women
- Kiro 7y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/10/and-the-least-feminist-nation-in-the-world-is-denmark https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/10/and-the...
  - belorn 7y ago
    "just one in six Danes consider themselves a feminist" "The Best Countries for Women is a perception-based ranking based on the responses of nearly 9,000 women who filled out surveys for the 2019 Best Countries rankings. The ranking is derived from a compilation of five equally weighted country attributes: care about human rights, gender equality, income equality, progress and safety." Combined they make the statement that you can label yourself as non-feminist and still care about human rights, gender equality, income equality, progress and safety.
    - Kiro 7y ago
      Labelling yourself a non-feminist and truly caring about gender equality is a paradox unless you have an incorrect view of what feminism is.
      - 7y ago

acd 7y ago

The recommendations algorithms have access to all our past interactions with these sites. They know exactly what we like and dislike. In order to keep us hooked they keep recommending content that we will continue to watch. There needs to be regulation of this both for news and mental health reasons. What happens when a recommendation algorithm in order to increase ad revenue keeps recommending depressing videos to a depressed person? We also get politicians which the one who gets the most attention wins elections, because internet is an attention economy. It does not mean that getting as much attention as a possible for a politician means that you have good intentions. Never in our past have companies have had access to information which keeps us mentally hooked to their services. There need to be some kind of safety standards.

intended 7y ago
This is the tip of the problem. What if new science tells us that seeing certain types of news results in X condition, 20% of the time ? Social networks are stuck.

vorpalhex 7y ago

> This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. Are you literally blaming YouTube for flat earthers in Denmark? The issue is that all regulators are human, and all humans have biases. No man is fit to play the censor.

deadbunny 7y ago
> Are you literally blaming YouTube for flat earthers in Denmark? Given the modern flat earthed movement was essentially grown on YouTube why wouldn't it effect people around the globe? Is YouTube banned in Denmark?
mensetmanusman 7y ago
Many of the flat earthers I have interacted with are actually doing it tongue and cheek as performance. It is a meme/troll many levels deep if you look into it.

ijiiijji1 7y ago

In a time of universal deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act. - Orwell

kolla 7y ago

Well they can print a full page lie and then the day after print a "sorry" at the bottom of the page. At least that's what they do here in Sweden.

throwaway744678 7y ago

This sounds like a nice, but dangerous idea: who decides what the truth is? Obviously some statements are blatantly false (2 + 2 = 5), but those don't need to be forbidden by a law: just ignore it, or laugh at it, and let the paper editing this lose its readership (or reduce it to the community of 2+2=5- believers). The actual matter is for controversial statements. I very much prefer those statements to be allowed, discussed, debunked if needed, than outright forbidden. In liberal democracies, the press is generally considered to be a needed counterpower (along with the establish executive, legislative and judicial powers of the state). Putting it under the control of the judicial power kind of weakens it.

flexie 7y ago

Danish lawyer here. We have rather usual defamation laws regarding libel and slander. I am not sure they differ from other European or American laws in any way that hold Danish media to higher standards. Even publishing true information can be a violation of our criminal code, for example certain information about private life or about past criminal convictions. All in all, though, I believe we have wide freedom of press and freedom of speech not unlike what they have in the rest of Europe and in reality not that different from what they have in the US. Yes, we do have a media liability law which makes the editor (or even the journalist or the publication) liable for defamation in the content and for publishing certain information about a person's private life. The effect is that Danish publications are forced to worry about defamation against persons or corporations, or groups of people such as certain statements regarding religions, ethnicity etc or about information regarding persons' private life. But apart from what I describe above, newspapers can publish more or less whatever they want without fearing criminal or tort liability. They mostly have to fear ridicule. A Danish editor will not be held liable if his newspaper writes wrong facts about the unemployment rate, crime, business climate, taxes or just about anything else that is in the news. I believe the answer to why Danish media still have a decent standard despite free online news and Google and Facebook getting the ad money, is found in the subsidies. Virtually all large media in Denmark are either public entities or private entities that are heavily subsidized. By far the largest Danish media is the national radio and TV station. All the large newspapers receive huge subsidies. They simply still have budgets to pay for journalism. Here is a list of the recipients with amounts: https://slks.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/Skrevne_medier/Redaktionel_produktionsstoette/Tilskudsmodtagere/2019/2019._Liste_over_tilskudsmodtagere_-_foreloebigt_tilskud_Juni.pdf https://slks.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/SLKS/Omraader/Medier/S...

dariosalvi78 7y ago
That's veeery different than having a law that obliges news to say the truth!!!!

kmlx 7y ago

> This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. i assume this is sarcasm, as society has historically been mostly illiterate and unschooled. right now is when we are the most informed in the history of humankind.

kmlx 7y ago
for people downvoting, the great "schooling of society" started in the 1940s-50s: https://ourworldindata.org/literacy https://ourworldindata.org/literacy till then most people around the world didn't know how to read and write. my own eastern european country had an illiteracy rate of 95% in 1920.

Xelbair 7y ago

You can present facts differently to manipulate opinion - even simple things like percentage vs percentile, or increases chances by vs to - and even if they lie, the correction won't be reach everyone who read the original article. Then there are opinion pieces - which by definition are opinion not facts. I seriously have no good idea how to regulate that: international or national certifications are bound to be abused(lobbying in case of former, national interest in case of latter) and current system is absolutely dogshit. Honestly it is because all news outlets optimize for one thing only - money - and money nowadays comes from one thing mostly: selling ads, or to be exact - selling access to serving ads to people with specific interests. As long as selling ads en masse is the most profitable options the current system will exist. Clickbait/Yellow journalism will thrive as long as it's only purpose is to attract attention.

kaolti 7y ago

The idea that we can mandate people telling the truth is laughable. The reason it seems to work in Denmark is probably because honesty is a social norm there. Secondly, there is no absolute, objective truth and there never will be. The best we can do is to individually strive for telling the truth and hope for the best.

sjy 7y ago
You accept that honesty could plausibly be a social norm in some countries, yet you think it's laughable that the law might play a role in establishing and upholding that norm?
- kaolti 7y ago
  That's exactly right. I'm not contesting laws playing SOME role, but in the grand scheme of things they don't uphold norms.

ohduran 7y ago

I can twist that, and indeed I do, by quoting somebody telling a lie. I'm positive infotainments do it all the time: such and such people said that the Earth is flat because so and so. People are so gullible, and some would argue that if they fall for things like that, it's on them. In my opinion, Twitter is getting into a muddy situation with this: what is "political", what is "advertising"... and what is "paid", are all terms that could have different interpretation. One could argue that Twitter may have just said "hey you, if this is illegal, send a court order and will take it down, otherwise everything stays", forcing governments to actually define what goes and what doesn't, instead of relying on for-profit companies to tell us what we can see and what we can't. But that train departed so long ago.

meisterbrendan 7y ago

Can you talk more about how those laws work in Denmark? I’m extremely interested in the idea that a society has incentivized both a robust free press and accountability to speak the truth... If that is the case it seems like those lessons would be very useful to democracies the world over.

dariosalvi78 7y ago

The definition of truth is quite a complicated one because truth is substantially a social construct. I wonder how this law works in practice. The main problem about social platforms, IMHO is not rubbish information, that's everywhere including printed press. The problem is plurality. Internet was supposed to actually solve this issue, but centralised, obscure and algorithmically controlled echo chambers have reintroduced it. The problem is, as always, when you put too much power into the hands of one entity...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tsmarsh 7y ago

The Guardian has the motto: “Comment is free, facts are sacred” During the rush to digital a section was launched “facts are sacred” Hahhahahah No it was “Comment is free”, that is what generated clicks and ad revenue

Jestar342 7y ago

The UK have self-regulating press. sigh

mnky9800n 7y ago

Information flows freely across borders. I'm not sure it can be regulated unless the borders stop mattering as much.

ashelmire 7y ago

> I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something. Why should it be treated any differently than other media? What we need is a return of the Fairness Doctrine in the US (and something similar to the EU) and application of the policy to social media advertising and news outlets. It won't stop foreign psy-ops, but it will stop a lot of the internal-originating lies and deception.

buboard 7y ago

A bit too dramatic. Most places have libel laws, denmark is no exception. Twitter is not a newspaper but a platform. Most news are commentary on tweets anyway. After banning political paid ads (the burden of truth of which falls on twitter, since they are the ones doing the publishing), twitter is even less a publisher and more a platform.

r00fus 7y ago

> I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something. Why doesn't the laws apply for Facebook? Ads are something they are profiting from, therefore implying involvement and thus Has Facebook reached the point where they could be fined for simply hosting untrue content? They curate and don't show everything so the argument of being just a "market of ideas" rings untrue.

naasking 7y ago

> In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. The problem is, who gets to define what's truthful and how do you quantify the bar for "truthfulness"? This is a deep philosophical question that doesn't really have a satisfactory solution at this point. Some cases are "obvious", but laws shouldn't be written with just the easy cases in mind. > This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not. This is incorret. Anti-vaxxers and anti-vax protests have existed since the inception of vaccines back in the 1800s [1]. Flat earthers for longer. It's a convenient narrative that the internet somehow created these anti-science movements, or somehow spread them, but that's not really supported by facts. Celebrities like Jenny McCarthy arguably spread that message far more than people talking with each other on Facebook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy