
Germany Considers Fining Facebook $522,000 per Fake News Item - dvichg
http://heatst.com/tech/germany-considers-fining-facebook-522000-per-fake-news-item/
======
rudolf0
This would set a very frightening precedent. Will they also fine reddit every
time a misleading story is submitted to a subreddit?

Most of the fake news articles made during the election were poorly written
hoaxes with the goal of collecting ad revenue. Without any of them, Trump
still would've won. But even if a foreign nation is spreading propaganda
through news articles, unless it calls for violence or other crimes, I don't
see why Facebook has an obligation to remove them.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Without any of them, Trump still would've won.

Then why is Breitbart planning to expand into the French and German markets
_precisely_ on the eve of French and German elections? Do we think that these
websites _themselves_ actually believe they have no political influence, when
they seem to be deliberately operating as ad-fueled propaganda outlets for the
far-right?

And don't think I'm just being partisan. If World Socialist Web Site was
pulling this stuff I wouldn't be happy either.

~~~
maratd
> And don't think I'm just being partisan.

You are just being partisan. The notion that somehow fake news is a thing,
that it misleads people, or that it affects elections is ridiculous. It's an
excuse for losing an election and avoiding blame.

Fake news has been a part of our media since forever. Go read the tabloids.
People enjoy that stuff and that's all it is, entertainment. Would you ban
tabloids from newsstands too?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>You are just being partisan.

I just don't think the two sides are equivalent here. AFAIK, there is no far-
left fake news website with the same revenue or audience numbers as the far-
right has right now. The far-right is _winning_. If you side with them, go
ahead and be happy, but I don't think I've said anything false by merely
noting that they're succeeding in their stated goals of making money and
spreading their views.

>Fake news has been a part of our media since forever. Go read the tabloids.
People enjoy that stuff and that's all it is, entertainment. Would you ban
tabloids from newsstands too?

I'm not advocating banning anything. I'm advocating that ordinary journalistic
standards should apply to anything which markets itself as journalism.

~~~
maratd
> AFAIK, there is no far-left fake news website with the same revenue or
> audience numbers as the far-right has right now.

Why is this a competition you want to win? Seems like a race to the bottom.

> I'm advocating that ordinary journalistic standards should apply to anything
> which markets itself as journalism.

There are no universal "journalistic standards". There are standard to which
specific outlets hold themselves to and that's great, but that's hardly an
argument to holding others to the same standard.

I have no expectation that The Sun holds itself to the same standard as The
New York Times and frankly, I wouldn't want them to.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Why is this a competition you want to win? Seems like a race to the bottom.

Who said I want to win?

>There are no universal "journalistic standards". There are standard to which
specific outlets hold themselves to and that's great, but that's hardly an
argument to holding others to the same standard.

Well, if I might put forward a positive program, I think that publishing
falsehoods under cover of journalism, in a way that harms people's lives,
should be a civil offense which the victim can sue for. Let the lawyers duke
it out in court: not every case will be ruled the right way, but being sued is
itself a penalty that will discourage sleaze.

We already have a moral standard for when "fake" speech stops being free: when
it is both false and harmful. I don't think we'll destroy the freedom of
Western societies by expanding that to cover, "both _bullshit_ and harmful",
and we'll deter quite a lot of genuine harm.

------
greenspot
This discussion around 'fake news' shows clearly but also shockingly how
governments lost the ability to control communication. It's not about deciding
if a news is real, propaganda or fake—the borders are blurry anyway—it's about
who is controlling the communication.

The communication to its people is the one of the most important power a ruler
has. Around 50 years ago, governments could influence their nations with
state-owned mass media such as tv and radio. Then, private tv and radio came,
then the Internet, they lost control but not much, they still could control or
subtly influence communication in large part.

Now with FB, it seems that they lost any control and new right-wing parties
are way more experienced in employing social media for their needs. Instead of
pushing millions into social media and government-driven bot armies, they
whine and call for censorship.

I think FB won't do anything, what can Germany do? FB's power is much bigger
than Germany's government and legislative. Which is a disturbing thought.

~~~
Yetanfou
FB is not the main avenue for news outside of governmental control. If
anything, FB makes it easier to control the flow of news for governments due
to the centralised nature and the fact that FB has a commercial interest in
remaining on a relatively good footing with the powers-that-be. Which is why
FB cooperates in 'fighting "fake news"' (yes, double scare quotes here as both
the 'fight' as well as the 'fake news' are of questionable nature).

Anyone can start a 'news site', either using one of the established blogging
platforms or by renting some space on the 'net and running their own site.
That this avenue is mostly taken by what is considered 'the political right
wing' is not surprising, given that the majority of established media in a
large part of Europe (which is where you'll find the largest proliferation of
'alternative' media) is considered to be on the 'left side' of the political
spectrum. In some countries this development has gone so far that a majority
of people don't consider established media to be a reliable and trustworthy
source of news, e.g. Sweden [1]. Some of the 'alternative' media strive to
uphold traditional standards of journalism, often as a reaction to the demise
of those traditions in the established media. Others just try to push their
message using whatever they think will stick, standards and traditions be
damned. The former are a valuable addition to the media landscape and could
prove vital in the sight of extending governmental control of media. The
latter are at best a nuisance, at worst a factor in destabilising society.
While they may consider themselves to be 'patriotic citizens defending their
freedom', they only serve to reinforce stereotypes of whatever political
movement they represent.

I for one am glad that the 'net makes it possible to publish outside of
governmental control. I also know enough not to blindly trust whatever is
published, be it through 'alternative' or 'established' media. In the 'fight'
against 'fake news' the question soon rises who gets to define which news is
'fake' and which is 'true'. The government ('ministry of truth'...)? The
established media (whose political bent was the original reason for
alternative media to arise in the first place)? Who will watch the watchers?

[1] [http://www.svt.se/kultur/ny-studie-halften-lockas-inte-av-
tr...](http://www.svt.se/kultur/ny-studie-halften-lockas-inte-av-
traditionella-medier) (in Swedish)

------
FrancoDiaz
And I hope Facebook fights back with everything it's got if Germany goes
through with this.

I know why politicians don't care about the consequences of such actions, but
I'm always surprised of the support here on HN for such actions, when the
horrible, slippery-slope consequences should be obvious. Well...I do know of
one reason, but I won't go down that political rabbit-hole.

~~~
dingaling
> And I hope Facebook fights back with everything it's got if Germany goes
> through with this.

I suppose the ultimate sanction from Facebook's perspective would be to null-
route any traffic from or to Germany. No news, no fines!

Losing 40 million users ( one-fortieth of their userbase ) would be a lot less
painful to the company than what Germany's leaders would receive from their
electorate.

~~~
singletoon
How about users from elsewhere spreading news about Germany ? Seems not like a
question of orientation, but more like a topic-filtering action.

------
pjc50
This article itself is kind of inadequate reporting without defining fake
news. It references an interview in Der Spiegel. This article is free but
references a Spiegel paywalled interview which might (or might not) elaborate
on the subject.

[https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&...](https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fnetzpolitik%2Fthomas-
oppermann-plant-gesetz-gegen-fake-news-a-1126182.html&edit-text=&act=url)

Note that Germany has a longstanding law against one particular kind of "fake"
information - holocaust denial. For obvious reasons. Germany takes saying
"never again" to Fascism very seriously. The notorious "protocols of the
elders of Zion" is in some way the original "fake news".

~~~
dragonwriter
> The notorious "protocols of the elders of Zion" is in some way the original
> "fake news".

No, Hearst and Pulitzer's "yellow journalism" was fake news of substantial
political impact that predates the Protocols forgery.

~~~
Gargoyle
No, the people who wrote and ratified the First Amendment to the constitution
of the United States engaged in truly "fake news" themselves. They published
lies they knew were lies in order to gain political advantage, and many of
them did so quite gleefully.

They knew what the meant by Freedom Of Speech, and it without question
included political fake news. It's not something they overlooked, it was a
regular part of the political fabric of the time. And contrary to what the
current panic is saying, it all worked out OK.

------
kirykl
"Fake news" is the ultimate new-speak. Since fake news is nearly by definition
opinion this type of law in a round about way makes it illegal to have
opinions deemed fake by the government.

There's accrediting organizations for journalists that's kind of a start.

Legislating what people believe isnt solving the problem

~~~
swombat
> Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion

I don't think this statement is true. I googled "example of fake news" and the
first article gave a good counter-argument:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-
stori...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-stories-
zuckerberg_us_5829f34ee4b0c4b63b0da2ea)

> One example of fake news is this anti-Hillary Clinton story from the faux
> Denver Guardian, which declared in all caps: “FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY
> EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE.”

> Everything about the article was made up, from the city where the crime
> supposedly occurred (there is no Walkerville, Maryland), to the quote from
> “Walkerville Police Chief Pat Frederick.” (A town with a similar spelling ―
> Walkersville ― does exist, but doesn’t even have a police department.)

This is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of simple fact.

An organisation with the reach and revenues of facebook, which has become a de
facto conduit for news on a scale unparalleled before, does have a
responsibility to civil society to not corrode it from the inside by acting as
a giant megaphone for completely made up crap.

~~~
bluecalm
I don't know man. Anyone can go out and shout random things to people on the
street. Anyone can make a website and put made up stuff there or maybe a blog,
or a a micro-blog, maybe Twitter account. It seems Facebook is organized
around people and their "walls" where they can put w/e they please. If people
want to follow such person and share their content it's really on those people
not the platform provider.

~~~
feketegy
Facebook is not just a platform provider in this case, because it has
algorithms which decides what content will show up on users' news feed,
therefore it's filtering content (even though it's a script).

By this it could be said that the algorithm acts as an editor over content and
in Germany this kind of filtering/moderation/censoring has laws and
responsibilities.

------
eyeinthepyramid
I wonder how this would affect fake news sites like the Onion? Are those going
to be verboten?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Probably they'll have to have a clear indication that the "news" article is a
humorous piece and not real news. In Poland, our Onion equivalent
(aszdziennik, a pun on Nasz Dziennik ("Our Daily")), has such a note under
every piece they write. Recently, they also often have a note saying an
article is indeed real news instead, because reality has a habit of beating
even the best fiction...

------
agnsaft
Who decides what is fake and what is not?

~~~
sgift
Interesting question, let's try to split the three categories:

    
    
      - Clear fake news ("sgift lives in ..." and a false value)
      - Clear true news ("sgift lives in ..." and a correct value)
      - Opinion
    

The first two shouldn't be too hard, but also not very interesting. Most
'fake' news is more or less a matter of opinion, so you can debate as long as
you want if it is fake. I don't see how that could be decided outside of a
courtroom and I don't know of any trials that have ended in less than 24
hours.

~~~
debaserab2
Which category does clickbait fall into? There's usually some kernel of truth
in clickbait articles propped up by a lot of hyperbole. Does that make it
fake?

------
pweissbrod
This reads like like a knee jerk reaction empty of substance and tailored for
headlines. How would you ever enforce this effectively and fairly in practice?

------
my123
This will just set up the ability for any government to censor any website, as
other countries will use this as a précédent if it gets through.

------
kbuechl
Hopefully they plan on using the money to fund their school systems. Maybe
then they will stop turning out morons who don't understand that everything
you read on the internet isn't true. Sources 101. The U.S. might want to
consider it too.

------
MK999
Will we see laws that allow governments to suppress stories automatically?
Seems likely.

"Any forum / website must expose some API for the suppression of fake news to
the central authorities."

They already have read access (PRISM, Snowden, etc), now they will get delete
access.

------
arcaster
Is the German government planning on supplying a regime of government funded
(inherently biased) fact-checkers to gauge "fake news" in their country?
Otherwise, this plan seems foolishly reactionary.

------
atmosx
So a largely disrupting law will be passed on an EU xountry, based on
ALLEGATIONS about Russia messing up US elextions...

I find that funny and tragic at the same time.

------
genofon
just out of curiosity, how many of you actually checked this news?

------
lintiness
we can all hope this is a fake "news item".

------
riprowan
for perspective, libel (publishing false damaging information) is already
punishable

so the judicial system _already_ has the "ministry of truth" responsibility,
whether or not that bothers you

------
elcct
So US media will effectively be banned? ;)

------
Kenji
Nanny state has to make sure that wittle people are getting the right
information, hmm?

Looks like Germany can't fully shake off its fascist past.

------
squozzer
I smell less the odor of censorship and more the aroma of shakedown, something
the EU never tires of doing to US companies.

Maybe we should withdraw from NATO. I'm sure plenty of Ossies aren't above
making a euro helping Wessies improve their Russian.

