
Fake News May Not Be Protected Speech - adventured
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-23/fake-news-may-not-be-protected-speech
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Sounds good to me. Trump should appoint a Secretary of News whose job it is to
determine "fake news". How does Bannon sound to you?

Trump will be one of the best things that happened to free speech and civil
liberties. President Obama was so smart and benign that many people felt
comfortable giving up protections on free speech and civil liberties. It is a
lot easier now to convince people for the need to protect free speech now that
Trump will be in charge. These protections for free speech were created
because the founders knew that you would not always get the wise and good
people in charge. These protections are for when foolish and authoritarian
people get into power.

This is why I think these "fake news" pushes to limit free speech are foolish.
People are sharpening a very sharp knife for censorship, baring their chest,
and handing it to Trump who will have the Presidency, Congress, and soon the
courts. You are free to do this, but no one will be sympathetic to you when
Trump stabs you in the heart by banning your speech because it is "fake news".

Let me give you something more concrete to think about. What will be your
response when Trump and his EPA say that global warming is "fake" and ban all
mention of of global warming as "fake news". After all, fake news is not
protected speech.

~~~
ta_donk_gt
This is one thing I still have a hard time understanding about people. I
understand that hypocrisy and the like are baked deeply, inextricably into our
DNA, but the thing is we've all witnessed this stuff happen time and again and
without fail still choose to let it happen again.

People get on board with giving up power because it will work out for their
team _this_time_. The thing is, it will absolutely be used against your team
in the future. This has been proven time after time after time (just in recent
history, not even considering the whole of human history). It will be used
against you. It's not like smoking or other unhealthy behavior that will have
an effect far into the future but that you can't really grasp fully...you just
need to remember all of the other times it has happened in your lifetime to
know what it feels like.

~~~
unclenoriega
I have to believe most people just don't think about issues beyond a surface
level.

------
zone411
What I find more troubling than this whole "fake news" scare is subtle, hard
to detect bias that is quite common in the media. This can be done by omitting
some facts, through the use of words that bring up negative or positive
emotions, or through the use of less than objective sources. It's harder to
call out than obviously made up and unsupported stories, and even if somebody
would read such criticism, it's easy to ignore because the story is not
clearly wrong.

There is also an obvious echo chamber in the media and this current focus on
fake news is its perfect example.

~~~
taeric
Bias I can put up with, so long as it is not supported by fabricated facts.

That I have friends who are more conservative when presented with the same
facts that I can see doesn't bother me. In particular, it is likely a place I
should take notice and get a better understanding of the situation.

When the beliefs are based on complete nonsense and they are not open to
discussing how what they are pushing is just flat out false....

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> Bias I can put up with, so long as it is not supported by fabricated facts.

I am inclined to say the 'effect of fake news' on the election is a fabricated
fact.

It's not like 4-chan and bad subreddits happened yesterday - they just needed
some convenient strawman to attack after Hillary lost; I'm certainly no fan of
trump but it's sad to see otherwise intelligent people gobbling this up..

~~~
taeric
I think I agree that most fake news had no effect. But I still view fake news
as The Onion. Mostly a comedic effect. However, having seen that some folks
actually trust brietbart (spelling?), I am left speechless.

It is defended as being "like The Onion," yet also compared to serious news
sources. Biased maybe, but also serious and holding themselves to facts.

And I get the difficulty. Being wrong is not necessarily lying. However, lying
should be discouraged. Heavily.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> However, lying should be discouraged. Heavily.

People are also into 'healing-crystals' and 'prayer' should we do something
about those as well?

~~~
taeric
Do you actually have something actionable in this comment?

I mean, at an actionable level, "healing-crystals" should be labeled factually
as to their efficacy. And "prayer" should be encouraged as a way to keep you
thinking about things you are not acting on.

So, should we "do something about them?" I am not pushing for banning of any
activities. I'm not even hiding behind "free speech" as a shield. I did
misspeak, though. I do not necessarily want to discourage lying. What I do
want to do is encourage truth.

This is one of the reasons that "changed their minds" doesn't bother me.
Everyone has likely been wrong about something in their life. Confronting that
truth is not easy. And should be celebrated.

Do I like being called out for having been wrong? No. Not even a little. It is
a painful experience. Am I glad when it happens. Absolutely. I am a better
person for it.

------
ChuckMcM
I wonder if you could create a journalist certificate system which allowed you
to sign your news stories with your journalist's private key. Then places like
facebook and twitter could check the registry to see if you were in fact a
"certified" journalist. Then people who read your stories could vote for or
against their truthfulness.

The sign up process would be open to anyone, with or without degrees or
training, but it would require enough information and be costly enough that
you wouldn't have people send out a fake story get banned, get a new cert, and
do it again.

I don't doubt there are people out there who don't "write the news" for a
living who would be outstanding journalists and those who do that would get
banned for their lack of accuracy.

The idea being that in the past a brand such as the New York Times would
carefully manage its journalists such that its content was viewed as accurate
and authoritative, it has in the past loudly fired employees who "broke the
code". Aggregators like Google and Facebook and Twitter could use the 'newsy
score' to trend stories from respected journalists and de-emphasize or spike
stories from discredited or non-journalists.

~~~
nommm-nommm
So pretty much Facebook likes? People vote on what matches their worldview.

~~~
ChuckMcM
A I mentioned below I'm wondering if it might work better if rather than likes
you focused on "rejections" or people who felt the story was false. That would
subject it to review and that would then trigger more rigorous inspection.

~~~
nommm-nommm
So they reject things they wish weren't true. Same deal.

------
nl
Oh please.

Fake News != Biased News != Unprovable Conjecture.

It's impossible to automatically determine truth when something is published.
"The Pope endorses Trump for president" was the archetype of the fake story,
but it is impossible to distinguish between that and being the first
publication to break the story. While I've seen the stats on these circulating
on FB, I'm unconvinced that most of these fall into this category. To me, this
must be 100% false with no possibility of interpretation for news to be
"fake".

Biased News (whether you think CNN/NYTimes/Breitbart is the worst of this
doesn't matter) is protected. Take the NYTimes reporting of WMDs in Iraq: It
was dumb how easily they accepted the US Government line. I disagreed at the
time, and still do, but it's hard to see that as deliberately publishing
things they knew to be fake.

Unprovable Conjecture stories ("pizzagate"/"Trump is a Russian plant"
depending on your leanings) is something that I think is really damaging to
sensible discourse and an informed electorate. "Fake News" is a distraction
from this, which is something I think is the real problem.

~~~
xname2
Technically, how do you know "The Pope endorses Trump for president" is fake
without contact the Pope's office for verification? You can't just say it
looks obviously fake so it is fake.

~~~
nl
That's exactly my point?

(In this case people did check and it was fake. But when it first arose there
was no way to verify that - which is what I thought I said above?)

------
gremlinsinc
This sounds crazy... you have the left blaming 'fake news' and actually toying
with the idea of censorship, in an era where Donald Trump and Bannon run the
country. -- Open the gates for censorship and propaganda warfare on our own
people isn't far behind. -- Do we seriously have politicians and people
calling for censorship, going AGAINST freedom of speech, and a President who
could start internment camps? -- How far are we away from becoming 1939 in
Germany?

------
jeffdavis
It's easy to justify tyranny. All you have to do is find something important
but imperfect, call it a "failure", and ignore all the ways your alternative
can fail in much worse ways.

Even better is to leave your alternative unstated, so nobody can counter it.

------
EEGuy
NPR sussed out what looks to me like "FNaaS" (Fake News as a Service (tm))[1].
The company's called "Disinfomedia".

Does FNaaS constitute shouting fire in the crowded theatre that is FB?

[1]
[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-
finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs)

------
sandworm101
The analogy to shouting "fire" isn't appropriate. There is a public interest
balance when it comes to speech. The more public the interest, the more
liberty you can take with the truth. Falsely shouting "fire" involves no
public interest. All it does is harm. But saying the president is a Lizard-
person from Mars ... that actually involves something of great public
interest; the honesty of a politician. No court will step into that question.
No court will trample on someone's right to say any manner of untruths about a
politician.

The flip side to this is speech about non-public persons. You can call the
president a lizard, but say the same about his kids and you expose yourself to
slander liability. False news about non-public persons is already regulated.

Freedom of speech is about the government not locking you up. Private lawsuits
are a totally different paradigm.

~~~
redial
Who is to judge what is or isn't in the public interest? Is a song that shouts
fire illegal? not protected? The fire argument always gets made, but is
shouting fire _actually_ illegal or even regulated?

~~~
Analemma_
> Who is to judge what is or isn't in the public interest?

Er, judges? For all the histrionics, they've traditionally done pretty well
with 1A cases.

~~~
redial
To my knowledge they don't judge in line with the _public interest_ , but with
the law, and shouting fire is not against the law.

------
pharrington
reposting a shadowbanned account's comment that is relevant to this:

> Like the Rolling Stone's fake rape story?

------
billo69
What's all the hubbub about fake news now? We've always had fake news: The
Onion, Not Necessarily the News, Fox News...

------
smegel
Let's be clear - this whole "false news" thing is the liberal, elite press
reacting against independent thinkers who dare question the narrative they are
trying to push.

This. Is. Why. Free. Speech. Exists.

~~~
nommm-nommm
No, the fake news thing is a bunch of Macedonian teenegers who are trying to
make money. They readily admit it.
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-
became...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-
global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.ec0ZK9mPZ#.wp4LEYR4L)

~~~
smegel
That's where it started, I don't think the mainstream media wants it to end
there though.

------
desireco42
There is Standing Rock drama ongoing for months. You would not know about it
following so call 'real news' media. Enough said about fake news.

And villan Facebook is only way you get news about events like these.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is not the same issue. There has been coverage of the Standing rock
protests in all the major media outlets, the story dies because in part
because of how it is presented (Native Americans notion that their idea of
sacred ground isn't shared by the current legal holders of that ground) and in
part because the risk of pipeline leakage relative to other risks (train
derailments[1], coal plants dumping into rivers[2], the EPA uncorking tailing
ponds[3])

Thus for much of the country they hear : "These protesters, with no compelling
reasons, are preventing work on a pipeline that will help make your oil and
gas prices stay low and create jobs for drillers and oilmen in the Dakotas."

And the story falls flat on its face and nobody picks it up again. If anyone
involved in the protest wants to get any traction at all on that story they
need to figure out a way to get regular people angry about it.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=derailed+cars+leak+into+rive...](https://www.google.com/search?q=derailed+cars+leak+into+river&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=coal+plant+dumps+into+river](https://www.google.com/search?q=coal+plant+dumps+into+river)

[3]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=epa+accidental+release+in+co...](https://www.google.com/search?q=epa+accidental+release+in+colorado)

~~~
desireco42
First there is barely any, what is happening there is military style
intervention that same media would happily report if it was happening
somewhere else.

And secondly, when it gets reported, it is heavily spinned with corporate
interests in mind. Protesters are not crazy, unreasonable people. They've been
justified with recent accidents that happened, which is exactly what they were
warning about.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I hear you but you missed my point.

When protesters block roads and burn property you get a big police response,
it happened in Ferguson it's happening in Standing Rock.

The difference in news coverage depends on _WHY_ people are blocking streets
and burning things.

In Ferguson the viewing/reading/listening public could relate police killing
an unarmed black civilian by a nearly all white police force with race
relation issues.

In Standing Rock the people viewing/reading/listening to the news from there
_cannot_ relate to people demonstrating against a project that has met every
legal obligation and answered every legitimate challenge. The folks on the
ground don't like it, but the rest of the world doesn't seem to care that they
don't like it.

Nobody has been able to explain why we should care. And don't say "gee the
police could do some military style intervention on you too!" which I would
totally expect if a few hundred of us start burning things and blocking the
roads. Explain to the public, like they are 5, why they should prefer to stop
this pipeline rather than to build it.

