China closes WeChat account in crackdown on anti-American fake news

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4 pointslvturner3 comments

So who exactly are the baddies?

The fake news. Or, to be precise, Internet-enabled populists (it doesn't automatically make the government of China or WeChat good, of course).

I think this is an interesting case that makes a point - on one hand, it's now a general consensus that a large volume of fact-free, manipulative posts online are harmful and many argue that responsible platforms should not host (or at least not to promote) them, but the very same countermeasures that governments and platforms took against them can be abused to suppress legitimate speech and social movements.

Which is why I'll accept the fake news omnipresence given widespread emphasis on research and corroboration skills over telling the government or companies to police it any day. It's like a new coming of age. The dawning of realization that people on the Internet are happy to lie to or manipulate you.

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