A German proposal to criminalize fake news | Hacker News Reader

A German proposal to criminalize fake news

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88 pointsvezycash115 comments

Tabloids have a long history of fabricating stories. Will they be held accountable?

Whenever I read about fake-news it is generally associated with the alt-right but people seem to forget that the established news are equally as guilty. I recall losing a lot of faith in the NYT when I read the Amazon expose and felt it read more like a vendetta piece/sensational than truthful objective journalism.

You should read a tabloid sometime for fun. They really tread a fine line with how they "fabricate" their stories. They wont flat out say "ABC did XYZ". They use tons of weasel words and passive voice to avoid technically saying something untrue or provably false.

    * lie: ABC did XYZ
    * weasel: ABC *caught up in* XYZ affair.
    * weasel: Many people believe ABC did XYZ.
    * weasel: Sources familiar with XYZ *are hinting at* ABC's involvement.
    * weasel: ABC denies XYZ scandal.
    * weasel: source at the scene of XYZ may have seen ABC.
    * weasel: ABC's silence about XYZ hints possible involvement.
    * weasel: ABC *breaks his/her silence* about XYZ. (my all-time favorite)
    * weasel: ABC *was investigated for* XYZ involvement.
    * weasel: ABC explains his involvement in XYZ. { but it wasn't XYZ, it was an XYZ-*like* event from 3-decades ago }.

Wow that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I don't know any of the people involved, and I don't remember this. But reading the first few paragraphs have me siding with Glenn. Without taking into account the actual contents of the website, the domain name is more an accusation and assertion than 'satirical comedy'. If this were to happen to me I'd be trying everything I could to get it removed too.

> I don't know any of the people involved, and I don't remember this. But reading the first few paragraphs have me siding with Glenn.

Well, that might explain why you side with Glenn, since he's guilty of tactics like this himself. Which is exactly why the website was set up.

The Amazon thing was one thing - it was opinionated, but at least it wasn't straight up lies.

On the other hand...

MSNBC running a fake news story to discredit Wikileaks. [1]

The Washington Post runs a fake news expose on Russian propaganda efforts to spread fake news for the 2016 election. [2] It has since retracted its claims, so I guess there's that.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactur...

[2] https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgrace...

I thought NYT went down the toilet this election season (including primaries coverage of Bernie Sanders), but then I remember they strongly pushed the narrative of Iraq having WMD on behalf of the MIC and supported the invasion.

It wasn't just the NYT - just about the entire fourth estate got on that bandwagon - with the whole nine yards of citing anonymous government sources, pictures of arrows pointed from Baghdad to New York and London, and testimonies of just how awful a dictator he was.

There's a vast difference between a story that doesn't do the subject justice and a story that is completely false. Trying to put an unfairly negative spin on things is bad, for sure, but simply lying is worse. I don't think you've seen a lot of the fake news that has people concerned lately if you think they're equal.

There's a motte & bailey argument going on here where when people talk about banning fake news, they want you to just think about the completely made up stuff, but as soon as you're not looking, they mean to apply the restrictions the stuff that they ideologically don't like.

I'm yet to see a definition of "fake news" that applies to Breitbart but doesn't apply to the New York Times without referring to ideology.

I'm also sort of curious how so many left-leaning people seem to be so excited to hand this power of labeling "fake news" and censoring it to governments or other powerful entities as we're what in is at least plausibly a large-scale swing to populist right-wing power gains in Western civilization. Maybe that will turn out not to be the case, but it's certainly a valid interpretation of the events of the last couple of years. Are you all sure this is the best time to be talking about powers to muzzle news sources? We're most likely minutes away from the Electoral College electing Trump as I write this, and while Merkel may still be in power in Germany it's not exactly like the winds are blowing her way and she's had to play some very defensive political games lately. Who's actually going to end up with the power to define "fake news"?

That may be so. I was just arguing against the false equivalence people are drawing between coverage that seems a bit biased and creating fake news out of whole cloth. It's similar to arguing against securities fraud laws because ads that show somebody getting excited for a bland hamburger are also deceptive.

My point is basically: No, some things are worse than other things.

Anyway, there may be bad actors advocating for fake news laws, but that doesn't change the fact that fake news is a harmful thing that needs to be dealt with somehow. I agree with a lot of what you say, but I'm also not in favor of throwing my hands up and saying, "Oh well, we're just screwed."

Fake news will be defined by the establishment or those with power.

I too find it strange the left is pushing this fake news narrative, so hard right as Trump is taking power.

Let's be clear: places like the BBC do _both_. Case and point:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002051.h...

discusses this article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4361563.stm

This is literally email spam. The whole point of the article is a lie designed to sell a ridiculously dumb product which absolutely does not work as described. This is arguably worse than fake news. Because it's spam!

Note: I'd appreciate a law that penalizes this kind of lying. I admit there is potential for abuse, and that we'd need a good legal standard for getting something obviously wrong as opposed to just getting something wrong. But this has a massive social cost, and I think it's not unreasonable to balance out those massive social costs.

Here's an idea: many news outlets sell access to their news. I should be able to sue them if they give me something that is not news. I also think there is an implied warranty for news sites, and so you should be able to sue even if you aren't paying. That's a legal theory that would work okay, probably.

Or better yet, if we remember back to the Libyan civil war, we have this BBC broadcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_-lzI8I0_0

With this BBC story to go with it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/9414812.stm

Now, to summarize.

1. BBC claims there there are masses of people waving pre-Gaddafi flag in the middle of Tripoli, a red, green, and black tri-color.

2. BBC shows footage of people in India waving the Indian flag, a white, green, and gold tri-color. With a 'Live from Tripoli' caption on it. With the talking heads nodding their heads, and saying 'Yep, sure are a lot of Libyans protesting Gaddafi there.'

3. Coming soon - the debate in the House of Commons about how we need to bomb Gaddafi.

How on Earth is this not fake news? What kind of collapse of process and journalistic integrity has to take place, in order to allow that sequence of events to happen? If they let such an obviously verifiable lie slip through, how often do they air unverifiable ones?

Talking about taking pictures from India and just lying about them, this is a nice collection of reporting where people are saying they're catching pictures of Chinese injustice towards Tibetans but are actually seeing things not happening in China at all.

http://wenhousecrafts.com/2008/mar/westernmedia.htm

The insane part is, when challenged by the Chinese-run media about the lies, the western news outlets complained that, well, China doesn't let us see what's happening in Tibet, so really it's your fault.

Let that sink in: they knew accurate pictures were impossible, so they chose to lie instead. That sounds like...

fake news.

That's not bias, that's printing something false because it tells a story you like.

Or say your government claims X has WMD and that we need to go to war, now. And, the press prints it as factual news. Turns out there's wasn't any and the government just misled (could be willful or ignorance or negligence). Now, will the press be held accountable for fake news or the government or no one?

I have an anonymous, unverified source, who will not cite their evidence because of national security that claims that Obama is a Reptilian who was born on Mars.

If CNN, the NYT, the Washington Post all uncritically parrot this, does that make them in on the lie, or no better then a tabloid?

Luckily, there are already legal standards for 'what a reasonable person would believe' in a given circumstance, so this part may not be a tricky legal puzzle at all.

Would a reasonable person believe that the CIA smuggles drugs into the United States, so that it can fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...

Or, alternatively, half of the things on this list?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...

They would, upon being shown evidence of them. That's my point.

Depends on the evidence, people are not always rational. I remember being called crazy before the Snowden leaks, then afterwards everyone just knew it was happening all along.

People have different standards for evidence and coping mechanisms for uncomfortable truths.

As I point out somewhere else in this thread, we'd want a standard that distinguishes between getting something obviously wrong and getting something wrong. We're all on the same page on that one.

While that is the intention, I am guessing it would lead to having legal involved in the editorial process. And, legalase-ish news to avoid prosecution traps, perhaps. Am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Title in quotes. "makers say" "B2Up says" "in theory" Big skepticism section.

This article is pointless but it's not lying.

Sadly, this is also wrong. Many parts are outside of quotes or indirection and state false things. For instance:

"The gum works by slowly releasing compounds contained in an extract from a plant called Pueraria mirifica."

That's the whole paragraph. If you can explain how that's not the BBC lying, please, enlighten me.

That's all beside the point. The story isn't about the claims being made, the story is "chewing gum can 'enhance breasts'". They never indicate the claims could possibly be false (even in the section labeled skepticism, which for some reason you believe contains skepticism), so saying, since most of the language is in quotes or using sources, it's somehow _super real news_ is somewhat astonishing.

The gum does have those compounds. That part isn't a lie. You might be reading too much into "works by". That means it's the active ingredient, not a claim of effectiveness.

Not having a counterpoint is lazy journalism, but it's not lying to go "X claims Y". And this article does have a counterpoint. "has not been extensively studied and such products may be simply another food gimmick"

This is like stepping into bizarro-world. You're saying _there is an active ingredient_ yet denying that there was a claim that it did anything! There is no active ingredient! It's email spam! It doesn't work by any means at all. You could correctly say it contains X, Y or Z. But saying there is an active ingredient says there is an ingredient that does something! There isn't!

You are being painfully pedantic. I had originally written my comment in an elaborate and precise way, but it was roundabout and I thought "active ingredient" would be simpler to get the meaning across. Apparently not. I'll go back to the original:

The gum does what it does by releasing those compounds. "works by" means that the gum's mechanism is releasing those. This in itself is not promising any particular outcome.

I can show you a "skin rejuvenator" and then tell you that "It does nothing. It works by blinking lights at you." and I would not be contradicting myself. "works by" is only stating mechanism, not result.

Nowhere in that article does the BBC claim a result.

>trying to put an unfairly negative spin

That's very hard to define and the line between a fake story and a heavily agendaed opinion piece is blurred but it reads to me as the kind of lines the people who make the rules would use.

After all, one man's news is another man's fake news: the onion is absolutely fake but we all like it because we're in on the joke. But the Chinese have reported on the onion before[0] and Iran[1]

So my point is that this is obviously a very delicate ground but I see this being abused by the incumbent media

[0]http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/27/world/asia/north-korea-chi...

[1]http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/28/world/iran-news-agency-dup...

Tabloids have a long history of fabricating stories. Will they be held accountable?

Tabloids are held accountable through the justice system and can be sued by victims of defamation or hate speech.

The issue at hand is that in contrast to traditional publishing houses, companies operating social media platforms aren't liable for the stories they distribute while to some degree still financially benefitting from the controversy.

The laws under discussion are aimed at creating an incentive to react to the complaints of victims in a timely fashion.

They already are.

And this law just applies the laws that apply to the tabloids also to the web.

But are they really held accountable? If they were they would stop doing it. A slap on the wrist fine that is filed under "cost of doing business" in their P&L isn't really accountability...

They are held responsible in the same way as the news websites will be - if they remove the article fast enough, and publish an article that's equally visible retracting their previous statement, within of 24h, there won't be any punishment.

News organizations could post a bond on each article. Then they could lose money if they lie. For the main context of a story, for factual inaccuracies, for spelling mistakes, it could be contextual with different types of bonds. The question is how to verify, since these 'fact-checker' websites are a 'who guards the guards' problem.

Eh, the highest punishment for a newspaper generally is that they are forced to publish a retraction, and maybe civil damages for someone they reported about. I can't think of any law that explicitly punishes made up reports. Is there one I'm not aware of?

I'd guess that in many jurisdictions, some libel law could be used to slap them if the story names individuals or (some places) corporate entities.

This probably would require the mentioned parties to sue, though - so no luck if it is a fake news story portraying someone in a positive light.

Casting doubt on what constitutes a fact is core to the maintenance of power in a dictatorship.

Those who now believe there is an equivalence between far-right propaganda (some of it originating form a hostile power) and the NYT, are a lost cause. It is identical to equating the bulk of the scientific community to a few climate change deniers. You obfuscate your own view of reality.

You will find that individuals emerging from behind the iron curtain were more stunned by the accuracy of information and the absence of a surreal reality in the west than by anything else.

As an aside, it's interesting the stunning amount of interest in guaranteeing the wide circulation of utterly false propaganda on a site that instantly mob censors any discussion of Russian hacking. A site called Hacker News (apparently ironically).

Dictatorships also commonly decide what is fake news, not just casting doubt on truth. Thats why they limit media companies and control the news so closely.

This fake news narrative seems far more comfortable in a dictatorship then a free country.

The new yorks times was clearly pushing an agenda this election which is what ruined its reputation and made it on par with various propaganda sites. A poor decision which has ruined its credibilty.

If accurate information is in fact one sided, it will look like the purveyor is pushing an agenda.

And in fact every competent news source including the Atlantic, WaPo, CNN, the Guardian, Forbes, the BBC, NHK and the Economist reported the same things.

Free societies decry false propaganda and always have. Authoritarians decry accurate information as equivalent and any information contrary to their goals.

But unfortunately there is no force on earth to dissuade the indoctrinated that there is no world wide conspiracy out to get them. That their facebook feed and extremest websites have no connection to reality. Particularly if they have found a charismatic leader to focus on who has no interest in accuracy.

>...what ruined its reputation and made it on par with various propaganda sites...

The is false. Generally, a thing does not become true simply because someone tweets it.

Free society isnt pushing a false news narrative, that is the mainstream media in its death throes.

The google trend analysis shows how artificial the fake news narrative is.

As for the new york times, they published a plea for subscribers, large losses, and even down sized their real estate. That is all very strange for a once trusted institution, outside of our hackernews bubble there is real sense the times is now just propaganda.

Given that the topic is about a German government action, it's safe to say it very much is a concern for free societies and not a product of US media. And therefore I fear you conjectures about google trends, the Times financials and a conspiracy of failing media to gain market share is as flawed as it is distracting.

>...outside of our hackernews bubble there is real sense the times is now just propaganda...

And that is exactly backwards, unless you're living in a especially un-innovative and low achievement area of the country. If so suggest you'll have more success moving to a city with bright people than pinning your financial hopes on a demagogue.

I wish that was true, but I live in PA, and the hitjobs on bernie sanders really ruined the times credibility with alot of young people.

Im in college in philly. and hear moaning about the mainstream media from people on both sides of the political spectrum. Credibilty is shot for my generation. Times are changing.

Clearly this is an attempt at censorship which is evil and stupid; But I want to step back and think about what the practical issues of trying to ban fake news.

How does one differentiate between silly things that clearly satire like the onion and extremists like flat-earthers that cleared ought to be the target of satire?

Let's presume all the Facebook and fakenews servers are outside of Germany, or whatever metaphorical country, then how are the laws suppose to stop them? Block that site in the country, that doesn't even work in China?

Clearly this is an attempt at censorship which is evil and stupid;

Why should defamation laws that apply to newspapers and other media not apply to social media?

Another issue is that defamation spreads much quicker through social media than most traditional means and it is harder to hold persons accountable (especially when they are not in the same country).

So, it makes sense to evaluate what defamation means in the digital age. The parliamentary and judicial processes should show what is feasible and within bounds of the constitution.

(I understand the frustration. Are you a big ad customer? You can call Facebook and get them to assist you immediately. Are you the victim of provably incorrect personal attacks, no way you can get Facebook to help. Unless you cause a big media storm.)

> Why should defamation laws that apply to newspapers and other media not apply to social media?

Because social media everyone talking to everyone, not a (hopefully) trained and responsible person attempting to be a source of truth addressing the masses.

I am also against libel laws and anti-defamation beyond the most minimal required to prevent fraud. When you start legislating truth it is only a matter of time until you have a state run ministry of truth.

While I agree with your overall sentiment, your statement "censorship which is evil and stupid" is clearly overly simplistic and, hence, wrong.

100% free speech does not exist in _any_ country (not even the US) - and it would not even be desirable. A society is better off overall if there are limits to free speech (think of insults, false advertisement, incitement, etc.).

You probably have to argue in a more nuanced way.

> A society is better off overall if there are limits to free > speech (think of insults, false advertisement, incitement, > etc.)

Insults? You should be able to (and protected to) insult anyone you please, at any time. Insult has to be taken. Insult is never given. There is no right to not be offended, and there should never be one, because offense/insult happen internally. You cannot insult me if i chose to not be insulted, you can not offend me if i chose to be offended.

False advertisement isn't about free speech - it's about making a verbal contract and not following through. You're free to say whatever you want, and the offence isn't in the saying it, its in the failure to keep the contract.

Society is rarely served by more restriction.

I don't think you are right, here. At least from a factual "as is" legal standpoint but also from my moral standpoint ("what should be" / normative).

I am not sure which standpoint you are addressing.

The easiest standpoint to defend is the factual / descriptive "as is" legal standpoint:

Insults / defamations are legally not allowed in most countries.

False advertisement IS indeed an exception to free speech. See here [1].

But maybe you were not talking about descriptive claims but normative ones. This would be a very different discussion.

[1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

This entire paragraph sounds like either paradox (first and last sentence) or sophistry.

I think you're confusing the verb "insult" (as it, doing something with the intent of insulting someone) with the state of being insulted. TO insult someone is to ATTEMPT to make them feel insulted, but its up to that person whether or not they are insulted.

I disagree with that distinction. To be able to insult someone means that the person ends up in a state of being insulted. Any failure to do so would be a failed attempt at insulting which cannot be qualified as insulting.

You chose whether or not you are insulted by something. I have no control over whether or not you are insulted. I can try to insult you, i can try to say the worst things possible to insult you - thats "being insulting"...

If you were standing next to say, a very enlightened, mindful buddhist monk - you can be insulting to him, but he will likely never be insulted. Because he choses to not be insulted.

Being insulted, having hurt feelings, taking offense - these are all acts that the "victim" themselves control 100%. Nobody can make you feel insulted, nobody can make your feelings hurt, nobody can make you feel offended. These are all choices you make yourself. You're the only person in this entire world that can make yourself feel hurt, offended, or insulted.

The real question is:

In the current world, where it's extremely easy to disseminate either real or false info on social media, and it has become possible to weaponize this mechanism to try and influence the core engine of a democracy (the minds of the voters), how would you re-define national defense in order to account for the new kind of threats in this environment?

How will the law define "fake news"? This is not a minor problem.

"Contains a factual error, beyond reasonable doubt?"

"Likely to mislead, on the balance of probabilities?"

"At least one non-typographical error due to journalistic negligence?"

It would be very easy for the vast majority of news articles to fall within the scope of a broadly drafted "fake news" law.

So the government will now decide which media sources the public is allowed to consume.

That'll end well.

What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow people to intentionally mislead people for their own gain?

I know a cynic will say "well thats what media does!" but no, it doesn't. Not at the level that the current breed of fake news and propaganda is doing. Exaggeration and taking things out of context are one thing (and in some cases nearly as bad), but totally inventing stories about people and using that to manipulate people is awful. I don't think "outlawing" it is the right way to go about it but there has to be a label that says "This is not a reputable organization" so that people that don't know better don't stumble in there and not know the difference and end up ready to shoot up a pizza place to save some imaginary children.

What has go to with this though is a totally open algorithm for declaring something fake news, essentially a non-partisan fact-checked breakdown of exactly how some source was declared to be "fake" and maybe some other automated metrics.

Granted, this will not catch the people who desperately want to believe the fake news or who already believe it, it is just to keep more gullible people from stumbling into the trap. Just like Chrome warns you when a cert isn't valid, why not say "hey you are leaving the beaten path of facts, proceed at your own risk". I'm not saying its up to google but search engines are a logical choice, but it has to be done transparently and there has to be an appeals process in case it was a mistake.

>What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow people to intentionally mislead people for their own gain?

Yes? That's kind of one of the founding principles of liberal democracy. It was a good idea in 1791, and it's still a good idea today.

The left is flipping its shit about "fake news" these days, but even in the US they've gone through far worse eras in terms of news reliability. The fact that you used to have gatekeepers who were more or less honest is an artifact of the startup costs of the television and newspaper industries, not some nirvanal state that has collapsed into darkness.

Seriously, go take a look at some of the shit pamphleteers were up to in the 1800s. The state of affairs today is nothing.

Democracy can survive people lying. It can't survive granting the government the ability to determine which "facts" the people are allowed to believe.

>Democracy can survive people lying. It can't survive granting the government the ability to determine which "facts" the people are allowed to believe.

This only holds assuming we have time to work things out naturally - unfortunately that is not the case at least in the context of climate change to ignore all other issues. Of course if you drink the fake-news coolaid you'll debate that climate change is happening or that its not man-made or wherever the goal-post has been moved to today. Hey everyone's opinion is the same though right? Your fact is my fiction!

We're not talking the esoterics of democratic theory, we're talking the basic ability to educate people well enough to make decisions affecting the survival of our species as we know it. To me its very similar to taking no action on climate change because the market will eventually handle it. It all assumes sufficient stability for sufficient time and that may not be a safe assumption anymore.

I never suggested the government specifically take action to say who can say what, but that doesn't mean that there can't be an open ranking system used by search engines and social media to people from accidentally falling into fake news through a ad that looks like a link from a more reputable location.

> The fact that you used to have gatekeepers who were more or less honest is an artifact of the startup costs of the television and newspaper industries, not some nirvanal state that has collapsed into darkness.

Actually, it was a result of treating things like the airwaves as a public trust and imposing stuff like the Fairness Doctrine.

> one of the founding principles

No, it's an ugly consequence of the principle that probably can't be disentangled from it.

What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow people to intentionally mislead people for their own gain?

Sure, why not? It's pretty much the state of things as they always have been, ever since mass media became a thing. Not that there weren't any downsides, to this approach. Buch the point is that the "cure" in this case would be much worse than the disease.

I'm surprised actually that someone like Angie -- who not too long ago live in a system where a centralized authority determined, on a daily basis, and with absolute power of discretion which news items were considered "real", legitimate, and newsworthy; and which ones were "fake" -- doesn't immediately and instinctively see how ludicrous such countermeasures are, and how easily (and inevitably) they will be abused.

Exaggeration and taking things out of context are one thing (and in some cases nearly as bad), but totally inventing stories about people and using that to manipulate people is awful.

Why is "soft-dishonesty" okay but "hard-dishonesty" unacceptable? Your argument is predicated on that being true, but it's an assumption.

What's more insidious, someone who lies to your face or someone who's acting like your friend but lying behind your back?

Humans have to build this, which means human bias is inherent in it. I don't think you have any idea how difficult this kind of event classification is. Political science struggles to do it years after the fact.

Do you object to laws against fraud in general or just this specific one?

Fake news isn't fraud. If it was, no new laws would be needed, because fraud is already illegal.

The problem is not any individual incident of "fake news" (propaganda) but the unending deluge of bullshit from some organizations. What Fox News pioneered with their loose handling of facts and always steering things towards a strong narrative that they controlled Breitbart took to the next level. Why twist the facts when you can make up your own?

Now it's like people don't know what the truth is, and they don't really care. It's slowly corroded the foundation of democracy, that being people making decisions based on the available facts. If they're being told that Muslims or Jews are the problem on such a constant basis they might be forced to believe it due to peer pressure.

I'm not sure laws can fix this. This is a systemic problem.

Gee, it's almost like the general population can't be trusted to reliably sort out the BS and make informed decisions.

I guess it's just too bad that no one ever thought of some alternative to pure democracy, like electing a handful of trusted individuals to do the work as a full-time job and represent our interests. We could call it a "Republic" or something.

Too bad nobody ever thought of that.

Republics don't really solve the problem of the people making poor decisions based on bad information. They just introduce a layer of indirection, punting the problem to the election of the "handful of trusted individuals." In order to truly get around the problem of misinformed voters, we'd need a metarepublic to determine which individuals can be trusted to represent our interests in the republic — and then it's turtles all the way down.

> we'd need a metarepublic to determine which individuals can be trusted to represent our interests in the republic

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is Hamilton's argument for having Electors cast the actual ballots for President without necessarily being beholden to how their state voted.

>Hamilton viewed the system as superior to direct popular election. First, he recognized, the "sense of the people should operate in the choice", and would through the election of the electors to the Electoral College. Second, the electors would be:

> "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice."

>Such men would be "most likely to have the information and discernment" to make a good choice, and avoid the election of anyone "not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68#Hamilton.27s...

The general public has other priorities than trying to get to the bottom of every story they've heard.

Democracy only functions properly when the electorate is well informed, that is being fed a steady diet of actual facts, figures, and editorial that puts it in perspective without heavily distorting the truth. Whatever form your democracy takes, "Republic" or otherwise, it depends on meaningful discussion and debate, not the current climate where one side refuses to engage with the other, or facts in general.

There are many different lenses to view the world through, but it's like these major media outlets aren't even interested in our world and instead create one that fits their views, then pretend to live in it.

"Millions of illegals voting" is just one example of this.

Please don't introduce snark into an already divisive topic.

In most places, fraud laws only cover some instances of the broader concept of fraud. For example, if I get people to buy tickets to a fictitious concert and then run off with the money, that's legally fraud. But if convince you to drive up to Portland for a concert that doesn't exist just to waste your time, that's not legally fraud because I didn't directly profit from the deception.

Similarly with fake news, people are not being defrauded out of their money, but the deed itself is no less fraudulent.

What would you do when "news" on social media is weaponized, and is used to shift the thought patterns of whole populations? How would you redefine national defense in that context?

Ignore any real or alleged connections to recent events, just focus on these questions, as a thought experiment.

>What would you do when "news" on social media is weaponized, and is used to shift the thought patterns of whole populations?

>Ignore any real or alleged connections to recent events

Please.

And there are plenty of ways to counter foreign propaganda, but a democracy needs to trust its citizens to discern the truth for themselves.

So no national defense whatsoever in this realm. A democracy needs to trust its citizens to throw rocks at the invading army.

Take a deep breath. There will be other elections.

That was a compelling, well thought-out intellectual answer to my question. Somehow I am not surprised.

And it confirms that this is all about winning at any cost. Yep, sounds about right.

As opposed to letting transparently false information trick people who should know better?

You're right, we should be leery about government regulations, but false information is a problem.

China often claims their censorship of news is about reducing the spread of "false" information. Who decides what is "false"? If we have to have someone doing that, I'd argue the one group that must be immediately disqualified from that position is the government, given that they have a known and totally on-purpose information imbalance with the public about tons of subjects they consider sensitive or "classified", and that a large amount of media reporting is about the government and wants to touch on these subjects.

Censorship and policies for countering fake news are not the same thing in China. The former is aimed at maintaining social stability and the latter is simply identifying the fake news and informing the public of the real situation.

For censorship it is the government that decides what to censor. But for the fake news, it is mainly the fact self-organized checking groups and the news media's job, and the government is not directly involved. One popular fact checking group has a name that literally translates into "rumor shredder": http://www.guokr.com/group/40/

Of course those that are found to be guilty of spreading false information are punishable by law, which is handled in the court and enforced by the police. But that's an entirely different process with very different parties involved as compared to censorship.

In short, censorship works at the government level and is enforced by the ISPs directly, whereas stopping fake news works at the level of self-organized groups and the case goes through the court system.

So, "censorship" is totally something that existed before the ability of mankind to automate enforcement: the police (the enforcement arm of the government) coming to your house to shut down the printing press you set up to distribute your underground newspaper full of "illegal" information is generally considered "censorship", and if for some reason you insist on a definition that doesn't include that, I hope we can both agree that 1) China does that (whatever you prefer to call it) and 2) we don't like that they do that.

Yes and yes for you. Yes and no for me.

Only the ones are subjected to the "censorship" may not like it. I am pretty sure what's going on in Chinese is also happening with CIA, FBI, MI6, etc. Ordinary people won't say that they do not like them, because it does not concern their interests and whatever operations that do can be justified as national security measures or national interest. But if you, however, do not like whatever CIA, etc are doing, then of course you wouldn't like what China is doing either.

That's why there's separation of power in democracies. Not the government (i.e. the executive branch), but the courts are in charge of deciding what's "false"

The courts of the judicial branch are generally supposed to (I realize this is blurry) interpret the law put together by the legislative branch, not define it. Let's look at the DMCA for a second, which makes certain actions users can perform to devices they own illegal: the courts could claim the law is inconsistent with some "higher law" (such as the Constitution), but it is absolutely Congress which defined what is and is not "legal". (Though, to make that specific matter even more complex, while they had the say in what finally happened, the executive branch there had tons of leverage as the DMCA is essentially mandated to exist in a form similar to the one it does by a treaty signed by the President, so it would have been complex to say "nope".)

You can always move the goalposts for "false". The major media outlets engage in misleading stuff like that all the time.

Did you see NBC's post-debate fact check?

Trump said Clinton “acid washed” her private email server. She didn’t. She used an app called Bleachbit, not a corrosive chemical.

...

http://heavy.com/news/2016/10/nbc-fact-check-trump-clinton-a...

(I don't know how good this site is, it was just the first Google result).

The end result (as well as this is meant), is that news and media organizations now effectively need a government stamp of approval.

You can see where that could go wrong. Funny it should happen in Germany of all places...

Even worse, citizens are incentivized to disregard critical thinking. Oh, this hasn't been banned...it must be true.

If only Germany would have the same allergic reaction to power consolidation that it has to anything resembling Nazis.

Technically, the people who believe false information and aren't critical are the problem, but I guess there's not a whole lot we can do about that, other than prevent the incentives that currently exist for fake news (ad profit)?

Yeah: I'd even argue that banning the sale of advertising space "by the click" or even "by the view" (as opposed to "by the action": where someone has to actually purchase the product being advertised before the website gets paid, which is a much better model anyway) would be a safer thing to do to civilization (and would have tons of other really nice effects; we'd probably finally get rid of those articles which are broken into 20 pages, one sentence a page, in the hope of getting more "clicks") than having state-sponsored censorship.

I mean: isn't it extremely interesting that we are now walking backwards to this point starting with "due to a lack of this kind of censorship, we allowed a very conservative person to get into office"; it is almost like this is being taken as an "opportunity" to get liberal people who otherwise would balk at this idea to get on board because now it is supposedly on their side and is couched in terms they agree with. I wonder if there are people who noticed this whole thing as their opening to finally broach the subject with Western civilization :/.

Minitruth at work.

Lots of opinion here, no real data. The one chart from the pew research center is how people, "feel," about an issue. OK...so what?

Ironically, Hacker News is censored by Y-Combinator, but no one on this thread seems to mind. As soon as it's a government body however, many people on this particular thread are up-in-arms. So one thing we do know for certain is that stated intent about censorship is different than actual behavior, within the context of our discussion. How can we improve this conversation? In general, people love censorship if it benefits themselves, (in the case of Hacker News, keeping a non-post-September environment), but they don't like the idea of it potentially damaging free speech and causing societal dissent overall.

I don't know the answer here, but I was reminded of something interesting I read years ago, about how we can, "measure" the type of censorship going on. There have been many studies that have come out measuring the speed and duration and types of Chinese censorship, and it's really interesting; here is an example:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512231/computer-scientist...

I know there are ways to measure censorship, I have never seen a structured approach to measuring internet censorship that already exists in Hacker News or the type of astroturfing that is done by the US Government already, etc. Those types of articles I think would heighten the discussion from the current state of, "hurr durr Government censorship universally bad in all circumstances, regardless of whether it's blatantly false."

I wonder if a better approach would be to make critical media consumption mandatory in schools. This approach seems like a whack-a-mole game.

Incredibly naive.

The most dangerous results of fake news are such things as yellow cake -- which was published by the new York times.

This is censorship, plain and simple.

Some details about the measures under discussion: http://www.dw.com/en/500000-euro-fines-for-fake-news-on-face...

So, there are a few kinds of fake news, in no particular order:

1) Clickbait made purely to attract clicks for the purposes of earning ad revenue. It may be partisan, but it's not motivated by partisanship.

2) Sloppy or flat out bad reporting by mainstream media sources, including state media like the BBC. This might or might not be motivated by partisanship on the part of the reporter or media outlet, but generally these institutions operate under a code of ethics and will issue corrections, etc.

3) Radical political media. Far left and far right bloggers, terrorist groups, hate groups, etc.

4) State sponsored or funded propaganda. This is media purely produced for the purposes of achieving some policy objective, particularly in a foreign country. They have absolutely no ethics guidelines and only use the truth in as much as it helps them, and will happily lie, otherwise.

I think the first two can be attacked by going after advertisers and platforms that fund it, and in the case of 'independent' state media, they seem to be fairly responsive to criticism.

The latter two are really the most pernicious kind and the most difficult to stop. The third, assuming they're domestic groups, can probably be hurt by libel laws in particularly egregious cases, but really both of them would be difficult to stop without imposing an oppressive censorship regime that would shut down plenty of legitimate media and criticisms.

I think the only way to resolve it is through education and investigations into the backgrounds of the worst offenders, and letting the public know who is funding these groups and what their goals are. Ultimately, the 'mainstream' media is going to have to get off its ass and actually do some reporting on this.

Part of the reason this is such a problem, imo, to begin with is that the mainstream media has served the wealthy and the elites for so long, that people simply don't trust them. What we need is a populist mainstream media organization which both has a real code of ethics and goes out of the way to serve the needs of the masses rather than the ultra wealthy and advertisers.

I suppose this is worrisome as a precedent, but I honestly could care less what happens to companies that are nothing but an social media presence. I can't think of anything we gain from their existence, and I pity the people who rely on them for any sort of information. And I'm still not convinced they really exist.

Who gets to decide what news is actually fake? This is a rabbit hole that leads to nowhere good - with legislation like this, the authorities become the sole arbiters of truth.

So long democracy, was nice knowing you...

Edit - lol at all the comments suggesting that the government may abuse this law getting down-voted.

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13203211

Fake news = news that doesn't support the government's agenda.

Merkel is going down anyway in next year's elections. She invited 1M+ refugees into Europe after taking a hardline on Greece. No amount of whitewashing is going to fix this.

Just remember Hitler also banned fake news in 1933 after the Reichstag Fire.

These are very interesting times indeed.

How do you even define fake news? Or will also fiction be banned?

You could define it more or less to be synonymous to 'lie': knowingly presenting false factual information. Fiction does not generally make factual statement or if it does (e.g. in the case of satire) it is labeled as non-factual.

so what happens when everyone starts accusing everyone of publishing "fake news"?

They'd have to bring them to court

Fake news can affect the economy negatively.

Traders, including trading bots use news as input.

I was going to say that free speech in a fundamental human right but then you mentioned the economy and I'm all on board for censorship.

It's not really censorship. It's journalistic rigor.

- In science, the scientific method requires you to present facts.

- In the justice system, the burden of proof is on the party presenting an accusation.

Now, journalistic reports can be considered products of sort that are the source of significant revenue. Most products are subject to certain scrutiny or regulation... why is journalism an exception? There needs to be accountability.

Fake news are a disservice to society, hence the "fake" denomination.

I look forward to reading your purposed constitutional amendment.

It's the thought that counts. I like you Germany.

Edit: I'll miss those stories about the baby born with three heads, etc.

Much like the hideous legislation passed in the UK, at this point I just think bring it. The more governments overtly undertake efforts to wrestle control of the internet, sanitise and snoop every aspect of it, and slowly destroy it, the greater an incentive to "fork the internet" becomes.

I also had a similar "chilling" thought and it took me back to when there was no web where the world of information was only accessible in person at a library.

Free Speech by another name. The fakest thing about stories about fake news are the stories themselves. The whole thing is so meta.

To anyone who thinks this is somehow a new phenomenon, please see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre

Self aware readers of all news anywhere know the truth; it's all "fake" it's just a matter of degree and perspective.

Fake news stories about Clinton running a child sex ring out of a DC pizza parlor isn't a matter of "degree" or "perspective"

“A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its laws and rules are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is simply that they can never be booked, in the present, into anything that could rigorously be called a perception.” ― Jacques Derrida

Do you remember what we used to call all the behavior that Snowden confirmed was true, before he confirmed it? The Snowden revelations are a hell of a lot more shocking to my conscious than "Pizza Gate". It's absolutely a matter of degree and perspective.

When conspiracy theories about politicians are illegal, then any critical public discourse about politicians is equally illegal. It seems to me only willful ignorance in search of political gain could explain an alternate position.

How much of this episode of BBC's Storyville about Gaddafi true and verifiable, true and unverfiable, and made-up blood libel? Which part of it is a matter of degree, and which part is a matter of perspective?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-r...

There is "twisting" the truth to implicitly convey a certain narrative, and then there are outright lies. Do not confuse the two: the "trash" news sites that publish blatant lies for ad profit are very real, and a bigger problem than bias in real journalism.

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