Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news
economist.com
economist.com
Not just overseas, but here in the US a lot of people just don't care about rights and think the government is the solution to everything if you just give them enough power.
Not sure how to keep rights, honestly. The Constitution and the courts help, but only for so long.
The only thing I can think of is that it could work in a poorer country (or at least relatively poorer) because people would self-select to be there for the freedom, and people who don't care bout freedom would follow money somewhere else.
On the other hand, for some reason democratic negotiations become harder with no parties willing to make trade-offs
I think claiming that people "don't care about rights" is being at least a little uncharitable. Things like fake news and disinformation are real problems, but citizens have ceded so much power to ever larger corporations; and those corporations have taken an ever more skeptical eye to the public good (in favor of focusing on shareholder value); that the only practical solutions to many problems may involve the intervention of a government.
If you care about your rights, you really ought to want to break-up corporations like Facebook into little-bits, which would then make many of these problems more tractable to being solvable by collective action than government intervention.
Governments can solve problems, but we should limit their tools such that our rights are respected.
If you ask me, a lot of our problems trace back to a lack of identity and culture. When you don't know who you are, you signal that you're part of a group by upvoting lies. When you don't know what our country is about (freedom), you just try to get whatever comforts a politician is promising you. When you don't have philosphical grounding for life, you are easily manipulated.
It's also not wise to let a problem fester because you're too unwilling to take any action against it (or all the actions you're willing to take are ineffective half-measures).
In this case, I think the best solutions are quite a bit more radical than many powerful people (and their followers) are willing to contemplate, so you get bad ideas like this one because they are the solutions that group least opposes. But I don't think that means the advocates of the idea "just don't care about rights."
"Lying online" is your characterization, not mine. Fake news isn't merely "lying online."
And the solution I was advocating was pretty radical: a massive breakup of the tech platforms and social networks that make widespread fake news dissemination much more practical than it ever was.
So if you aren't going to criminalize lying, what exactly are we arguing about? I am saying we shouldn't trade away rights -- are you saying that we should trade away rights? If so, which ones?
There's no scientific evidence to make those concepts not possible. Just evidence to make things we understand possible.
And on top of that, we have some kind of fucked up exception for God. Even scientists are just unwilling to go on a rant to disprove god, but totally happy putting someone in the psych ward for believing in aliens kidnapping them.
(im not talking about ALL scientists - of course you'll find them, but talking about bulk percentages here)
Thought police are coming.
> Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop?
That's a too-literal reading of the comment. The implication was clearly that what needs to stop is lies that claim Hillary Clinton is guilty of something she's not.
The only sane solution to this is to educate the masses, give them the tools to may be verify facts ...etc.
(I'm in favor of banning organized news manufacturing. But I fully acknowledge that it's not practical and leaves a lot of room for bias. If President Trump gets that power, there's nothing stopping him from banning CNN entirely and I'm pretty convinced that he would.)
Maybe the solution to the problem is pressuring Facebook and Google. Maybe the solution is changing tech culture. Maybe the solution is more aggressively demoting fake news and promoting debunking of fake news. Even if you want a governmental component, maybe we should only go so far as a law requiring advertising networks to make it easier/possible for an advertiser to blacklist who gets their money (I know people who have tried, failed, and ultimately gave up on trying to prevent their ads from showing up on Breitbart).
(And just so we're clear, the earth is round. It's a shame I have to state that, lest the rabid opponents of harmless flat earth nutters get the wrong idea, jump down my throat, and accuse me of all manner of outlandish offenses.)
Do you remember that guy who made a hydrogen peroxide rocket, said that he was going to check if the earth was actually round? Got a lot of support from flat earthers? He also got a ton of vitriol from 'sensible' round earthers too. A LOT of vitriol. People hoping he would die. Why? Because an Evel Knievel wannabe would joke around with internet memes about the earth being flat to fund his stunt? That's cause to wish his death? It was deranged. After he pulled off his stunt, comment threads across the internet about it had people lamenting his survival. People earnestly wanted this man (whom they'd never met!) to die, simply because he said the earth was flat. Even if he were sincere in that belief, which is doubtful, that's not any reason to become angry with him.
I don't think it's unfair for a site to not want to be associated with scam artists.
Singaporean here. This is the bill that was proposed in Singapore's parliament on 1 April (PDF): https://www.parliament.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-do...
The problem that many people have with the bill, as it is, is that it gives the power to Singapore's government ministers to issue "correction" or "stop communication" directions, on the entirely arbitrary grounds of "public interest".
There is a definition of "public interest" in the bill, but it includes a section which contains broad terms like "… to prevent a diminution of public confidence in [the government and its bodies]". The courts have no power to determine whether the public interest need is legitimate.
Second, the bill is procedurally flawed. An entity issued with an order by the minister must comply immediately, or can be charged with non-compliance. If they wish to contest the order, they have to first appeal to the minister, which is not obliged to reply within a fixed period of time. It is only after a minister rejects their appeal that they are allowed to file a case in the High Court (which requires expensive legal representation, unlike the State Courts).
This allows a minister to effectively delay the appeal process indefinitely.
Furthermore, unlike defamation, the minister also has the power to require the given entity to publish a specifically-worded apology (at their own expense).
This is worse than mere censorship — it's giving the government the power to make people say things.
Finally, note that the Singapore government is claiming to have jurisdiction over all media, as long as it is communicated to an end user in Singapore. Content publishers and their intermediaries will also be affected by this law.
If the citizens or elected representatives in a democracy voted to start censoring speech, but continued to empower citizens to vote, it would still be a democratic state in spite of the censorship. An illiberal one, but still democratic.
Only through the first election cycle [1].
Your idea is valid in a static, nothing-ever-changes world, with no significant political dynamics to speak of. However, out in the world as we know it, political processes run all the time, the proverbial pendulum swings, and consensus is formed via vocal advocacy and protests.
Right now we have four basic things defined as "political speech": person-to-person conversations; mass communication (press, TV, radio, online videos); peaceful physical actions like assembly and manifestations; and finally donations to candidates, parties and PACs. We protect each and every recognized form of "political speech" exactly because without it the important changes could not happen.
In a world with limited communication, you'd have on one side a small ruling clique, semi detached from daily concerns, a large mass of disenfranchised and zoned out people coasting along in the middle, and on the other side you'd have a small fraction of disenfranchised and either abused or outright persecuted people that can't even raise the wider society's awareness. This is an unstable state, leading to societal collapse in one way or another.
Let people speak effectively, lest they could not protest problems or oppression. Let people speak effectively, lest the wider society couldn't even learn of the problems faced by sub-groups. Being heard is the first, necessary step to having wants and grievances addressed.
--
[1] tiptoeing around Godwin's law
> Only through the first election cycle.
I'd like to point out that the incumbent party of the Singapore government has been in power since 1959.
It has 93% of the seats in our legislature, while only having 69% of the popular vote (it was 60% in 2011, but Lee Kuan Yew's death and Singapore's 50th anniversary probably helped boost it a bit).
They have no incentive to improve on the voting system, nor do many people in the electorate care. The government gives out annual cash bonuses of approximately $300 [1] to the majority of the population, which seems to appease them a bit.
Edit: I initially said 1965, but it was actually 1959. [2]
But you're being reductive. Countries around the world suppress speech to varying degrees without collapsing or becoming autocracies in a single election cycle. Many European countries have notably less freedom of speech in specific areas than the US but are even still widely considered liberal democracies (praising Nazism is illegal in Germany; UK defamation laws impose some of the highest burden of proof on the defendant in the Western world).
The Yellow Vests in France may disagree - for several weeks they were protesting in large numbers, every weekend, and yet their wants and needs haven't really registered in popular awareness. Why is that?
My point hinges on ability to raise awareness of issues, to break into public consciousness with grievances. That's different from espousing a particular political ideology. That doesn't even technically require a liberal democracy, but specifically requires having proper channels for being heard out, and conduct society-wide negotiations. The political facet of freedom of speech.
We here in Europe aren't in need of propagating authoritarian ideologies; that would not help in the least. However there's a growing need to be able to discuss and form consensus on issues of immigration, taxation, and growing worries over the retirement pension systems in the face of shrinking populations. The subjects effectively became tabu in recent years, up to the point of having developed a wide array of euphemisms. There's growing frustration over them.
Right now the subject of immigration is mostly discussed by far right and far left parties and movements. This causes people interested in the subject to drift towards extremes. It should instead be up for discussion - and negotiations - on the political mainstream. The subject by and of itself is orthogonal to political ideology. Suffices to point out that the major political factions, both in USA and in Europe, have repeatedly shifted back and forth on the subject over the recent decades.
• it was inaccurate of me to characterize the UK, Germany, and France as being liberal democracies according to the consensus definition of the term?
• the consensus definition of the term is wrong or bad, and the term should have a different definition that France, or Germany, or the UK wouldn't satisfy?
• something else entirely?
P.S. I also am not sure what it means for the Yellow Vests' wants and needs to have not "really registered". Didn't Macron rapidly rescind the gas tax that initially sparked their anger, and then make a bunch more policy concessions besides?
But you're being reductive. Of course the act of voting itself is meaningless if state doesn't vest power in it, but countries around the world suppress speech to varying degrees yet are stable, not in any immediate danger of turning into North Korea, and vest enough legitimacy in their elections as to be widely considered democracies, if illiberal ones. Many European countries have notably less freedom of speech in specific areas than the US but are even still widely considered liberal democracies (praising Nazism is illegal in Germany; UK defamation laws impose some of the highest burden of proof on the defendant in the Western world).
So you can't really judge these different nations based on whether government officials lie to you. They all will, let's just put that on the table and accept it. So you need to judge them based on other things. What other freedoms do you enjoy? How many other freedoms? What is the economic upside? (Lots of freedom with no economic opportunity gets old very fast, just ask the average Kenyan.) etc etc etc.
But, yeah, access to 100% of the facts and truth is not something that most of the world's residents will ever have access to unfortunately.
Violence is illegal, not the potential pathways.
So don't travel the world thinking that what you just stated is true. Potential pathways to violence may, indeed, be illegal in the nation to which you are traveling. And punishments can be harsh. They can, will, and have sentenced people to death for being caught with drugs for instance. No murder. No guns. No violence. No nothing. Just caught with drugs -> death.
I always strongly urge people, especially young people, to be aware of the legal environment in any nation to which they are traveling.
>I always strongly urge people, especially young people, to be aware of the legal environment in any nation to which they are traveling.
Absolutely. Being caught in the Dubai airport while connecting with drugs. You'll be faced with the consequences of the drug laws of the UAE without being techincally in the country. (Also you can be detained there for violating the laws of the UAE while connecting as well)
Also in Thailand, never step on the currency because it's a disrespect to the king (who is on their money).
Other countries act very differently. It's amazing when people go elsewhere and think "well it's legal back at home" (also the opposite is dumbfounding.. South Korea tries to punish people who smoke weed in canada if the people come back after smoking)
If your imagination can't provide you with dangerous scenarios arising from the state controlling what is true, history and fiction would be glad to assist you.
But do you believe there have never been any good public policies balancing public safety against other rights, that you agree with? For example, there are legal restrictions on how much people who work on our nuclear weapons can say about them. This is clearly a restriction of their fundamental human right to freedom of speech. Is it worth it?
Also this makes it sound like Singapore is less worried about mobs and more about cultural values
> K. Shanmugam, the law minister, warned lawmakers of the dangers of unregulated speech, handing them a list of “offensive song lyrics”, which included hits by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande.
[1]There was another riot involving Indian construction workers in 2013, but that was a spontaneous [massive over]reaction to a bus driver running someone over, not something planned or stirred up beforehand. And that's every riot in Singapore since 1969...
Singapore is more worried about publications which undermine confidence in the government.
A few months ago, a website was blocked for alleging that the government ministers were threatening war against Malaysia over a border dispute: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-herald-webs...
Critics of the current bill fear that the executive (which, like in other Commonwealth nations, is formed out of the dominant party in the legislature) would use their new powers on any media which refuses to follow the government's narrative.
In 2014, 80% of adults in Japan supported capital punishment, making it far more popular in Japan than it is even in America: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/28/national/crime-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Capital_pun...
To reiterate: America executes more people than Japan, but in Japan execution is far more popular than in America. In America, capital punishment is very controversial, but in Japan it enjoys broad public support.
To the original point, per wikipedia:
>"Of the countries/regions categorized as 'very high' on the Human Development Index, 10 countries perform capital punishment: the United States, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Belarus, Oman, and Taiwan"
Of those, one is in North America, one in Eastern Europe, five in the Middle East, and three in Asia. It strains credibility to suggest that Asia, moreso than Western Europe, is known for a progressive justice system.
> "I'm not sure how capital punishment is relevant"
Because the matter being discussed is "most Asian governments' preference for strict and harsh governance."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/world/asia/cannabis-canad...
without removing the basic freedom of speech, here is a law that'll curb it.
When posting on Social Media, you must use a) Verified Name with a Verified Pic or b) Reusable anonymous ID like anonymous-323876 (Generic face profile for all anonymous users). or c) Fully Anonymous like anonymous with a common,generic face profile
Sites can only use PII for verification, but must discard everything related to user and cannot tie PII UserID to any logs
In articles like https://www.wired.com/story/how-whatsapp-fuels-fake-news-and... there's no mention of anonymous, fake, or untraceable accounts, just real people being outraged and sharing misleading, sensationalized, or outright fake news, ultimately leading to tragedy.
Not to mention, your proposal is barely different from what Facebook already does.