
Free speech cannot be sacrificed to strike fake news - Jerry2
http://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/381871-free-speech-cannot-be-sacrificed-to-strike-fake-news
======
rdiddly
The market will sort out the real from the fake? The market is how we got
where we are. The market favors clickbait, not necessarily truth.

Don't get me wrong, I find all the calls for somebody to _do something_ (i.e.
restrict free speech) equally troublesome.

I basically think there's no solution. Liars gonna lie.

~~~
beisner
I mean, there's a long precedent of restricting free speech in the public
interest. The classic example of shouting fire in a public theater comes to
mind: the speech causes imminent danger to the theater occupants, and the
courts have ruled that the rights of the public to safety outweigh the rights
of the individual to say whatever they'd like.

The question with fake news becomes: what is the damage that this type of
speech causes to the public? This is a really difficult question to answer,
especially since we're only starting to notice the effects on our political
system. If this damage is too great, there would be justification to restrict
it in the public interest.

Of course, the people who end up making these determinations may also have
conflicting political incentives, which makes this a very delicate situation
to tackle in as broken of a political environment as we have in the US.

~~~
tikhonj
The "fire in a crowded theater" example comes from a court case that allowed
the government to imprison somebody for _advocating against the draft_ , and
it's been used to defend government overreach ever since[1].

What's interesting is how the same argument for allowing more discrimination
would be laughed off the stage as completely meritless and bigoted. But the
situation is exactly the same! Organizations are allowed to discriminate
against protected classes when it's a _bona fide_ occupational qualification
or the organization is a private club, so surely there's long precedent for
allowing discrimination in specified circumstances?

Somehow almost everyone sees how this argument is totaly facile in the context
of discrimination, yet it gets trotted out over and over when suggesting
further restrictions on freedom of speech.

[1]: [https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-
ha...](https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-
apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/)

~~~
mr_spothawk
> The "fire in a crowded theater" example comes from a court case that allowed
> the government to imprison somebody for advocating against the draft, and
> it's been used to defend government overreach ever since[1].

good grief... you should shout this from the rafters. thanks for sharing.

------
superkuh
Freedom of the press only means freedom to use hand cranked printing presses.
That is all the founders were thinking about. They did not anticipate high
throughput roll to roll printing, radio, television, or the internet.
Consequently freedom of the press does not apply to any of these things.

Only hand cranked printing press manufactured leaflets should be allowed.
Freedom of the press should be banned for all other mediums.

... and in case you're wondering, yes, this is a metaphor for another on-going
debate and an apt one.

~~~
ufo
Sorry but I dont understand what analogy you are trying to make here

~~~
hluska
I'm not OP, but it seems to be an apt (and well written) analogy to the 2nd
amendment to the US Constitution, which grants:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The 2nd amendment was written when muskets were state of the art and assaukt
weapons like AR-15s were almost beyond belief.

~~~
stale2002
> The 2nd amendment was written when muskets were state of the art and assault
> weapons like AR-15s were almost beyond belief.

I am not sure why everyone believes this, because it is completely untrue.

During the time that the constitution was written, 30 round semi automatic
assault rifles had existed for around ~100 years.

Yes they did. Really.

Check out the Kalthoff repeater:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater)

It was an up to 30 round semi automatic assault rifle, invented in the 1600s.

Now, it wasn't used a whole lot, because it was fairly expensive and also
wasn't mass produced (Although it WAS actually used in a couple conflicts, by
specialized forces!). But to claim that such things were "almost beyond
belief" is ridiculous.

~~~
hluska
I hadn't heard about the Kalthoff repeater (thanks for the link), read more
and also found out about the Cookson repeater, which was also released in the
17th century.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookson_repeater](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookson_repeater)

I didn't know about those weapons and they're impressive (though very rare).
But, there's still a huge leap between a Kalthoff/Cookson repeater and an
AR-15. According to that weapon's manufacturer, an AR-15 has a 30 round
magazine and can shoot 45 rounds a minute up to 1/3 of a mile!

~~~
stale2002
IMO, the most important innovations around guns have mostly been because of
changes in bullet technology.

The modern day bullets are the things that have caused the massive increase in
accuracy, energy, and range.

And I guess, also decreasing prices, and reliability.

It is perhaps possible to make a reasoned argument around THAT, but the
arguments around guns rarely reach the point beyond "ban the guns that look
scary".

~~~
hluska
I don't think it has much to do with "looking scary", rather it has to do with
raw power. Very few ardent gun activists would argue that citizens should have
access to fully armed m-1 tanks or nuclear weapons because they're too
powerful. There's an implicit understanding that certain kinds of arms are too
powerful, so the right to bear them can be infringed.

I'd argue that the same kind of logic should apply to weapons like the AR-15.
An accessible, reliable, fully dangerous weapon like the AR-15 is so far
beyond the 'arms' of the 1790s that the right to bear it could be infringed.

A gun in the hands of a qualified, reasonable person is a legitimate means of
self defence, but I can't think of why that should apply to something like an
AR-15, which is built to kill as many people as quickly as possible.
Qualified, reasonable people have many, better options to protect themselves
from the threats they'd reasonably face that can't so easily be perverted by
deranged fucks.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _A gun in the hands of a qualified, reasonable person is a legitimate means
> of self defence, but I can 't think of why that should apply to something
> like an AR-15, which is built to kill as many people as quickly as
> possible._

If AR-15 style weapons, which use .223 cartridges, were banned, that would
still leave sporting rifles, which use the larger and more powerful .308
cartridge. That cartridge was the size used in the battle rifles of the WWI /
WWII era that were standard before the evolution of the assault rifle.
(Assault rifles have smaller cartridges because the range and power of the
standard battle rifle cartridge was found to be unnecessary and the smaller
cartridges allowed soldiers to carry a larger quantity.)

Given that, it's hard to see how an AR-15 ban is anything other than a
cosmetic ban.

------
losteverything
I wish people could live my life before cable and the internet.

We are so so much better off now than the 3 networks is all you get days.

Somebody in N.Y. decided what important to me, not me.

When i wanted a sports score or tomorrows weather I had to listen to 30
minutes of news.

As I get older I want to consume Far Less news.... And I can now pick and
chose. A much better place than the 1960s or 70s

~~~
CM30
This is actually a good point. For as much as people criticise echo chambers
and fake news and what not, you have to ask yourself whether it was really any
'better' in the old days, or whether you simply didn't know otherwise.

Was it better when the government or the church decided what people were
allowed to know?

When there was one media outlet in a certain medium, like in the UK when there
was originally only one TV network in existence?

I mean, even the days when it was just newspapers didn't necessarily have an
informed populace or people open to other views. It had people who read the
same tabloid for decades and got stories that would likely make Breitbart
jealous.

Fake news may be a hot topic nowadays, but at the end of the day, it's really
just a byproduct of anyone being able to become a publisher, and it's probably
better that's the case than that one or two organisations can dictate what's
newsworthy and what isn't.

~~~
orev
Well, it really was better, for this reason: because you had limited options
and limited control, you had to sit/listen/watch/read through segments and
articles that you didn’t necessarily agree with, forcing you to be exposed to
other ideas. Sure it wasn’t perfect, but there just simply was not an echo
chamber like what exists today. Like any healthy diet, your news needs to
include things you might not necessarily like, but you could wash them down
with the other frivolous bits. Today you can just binge on candy all the time
and like any kind of addict, people get really upset when you try to take it
away.

Further, there was a pretty big stigma associated with buying tabloids, but
today you can indulge without anyone having any idea what you’re looking at.

------
enitihas
I think the solution for the problem of fake news is going to be very
difficult. People have a tendency of believing whatever they read in Facebook
or a random google search or a random WhatsApp message, and that is going to
be difficult to counter.

Traditionally the source of information could be monitored at least in well
run countries. However, when anyone can make his/her views visible to the
whole world and make emphatic claims with false logic, it is going to be hard
to prevent people from believing them.

A lot of threads I saw on the Myanmar issue say Facebook should have done
more. Maybe Facebook could change its algorithms to not show people aggressive
stuff. Maybe they can have an option to report stuff. But what about people
spreading propaganda in an exponential way, with only very few people
reporting. How on earth any messaging platform will deal with that.

I think we are looking at a very painful compromise some where down the line.

~~~
matwood
> People have a tendency of believing whatever they read in Facebook or a
> random google search or a random WhatsApp message, and that is going to be
> difficult to counter.

People have a tendency of believing whatever they read, period. Trying to
always remain skeptical and search out multiple sources and facts is hard and
time consuming. Being a skeptic is also challenging from a mental/emotional
standpoint, because you always have to challenge your own possibly deeply held
beliefs.

------
chrissnell
"Fake news" is an awkward word choice by the President but I think I
understand who he is targeting. There is a trend among major news
organizations to do reporting with an agenda in mind. Whereas traditional
reporting was "this happened and then this happened...", the agenda-driven
reporting reads like "this happened because so-and-so is trying to <insert
politicized opinion>". Sometimes these pieces push the facts to the very
bottom of the story. Sometimes they exclude them entirely. I place the blame
on editors with agendas driving the reporting process.

This happens on both the left and right. Fox News, Washington Post, L.A. Times
--they are all frequent offenders. I'm just so sick of it. Any sophisticated
reader can spot this biased reporting quickly but other readers can't and are
sucked in. I wish there was a strong just-the-facts movement/resurgence in
reporting. I'm basically down to the Wall Street Journal in my daily reading
selections.

~~~
jacquesm
Fox News and the Washington Post are about as different as could be when it
comes to the level of their reporting.

Fox is straight up propaganda, to the point that it is ridiculous that
_anybody_ would even take them serious, they're about at the level of Russia
Today. The Washington Post is more along the lines of 'manufacturing consent',
and if they lie it is by omission.

~~~
JBReefer
To me, "manufacturing consent" is scarier. Fox News is ridiculous and everyone
- _especially Fox News_ - knows it.

The Washington Post is as you claim, which feels dangerous. The same with the
Times (and the Journal on any non-free market health policy) in the modern era
- there's a lot that's left out: important context is intentionally omitted to
shape the narrative or to produce an angle, which is much more malicious.

Fox News/HuffPo/Breitbart/TPM don't scare me because they're somewhere between
junkfood and supermarket tabloids. It's the people who lie when they appear to
tell the truth - like WSJ coverage of any single payer country - that freak me
out.

~~~
wycy
This became painfully clear to me particularly during the 2016 primaries. I
watched as news organizations I formerly respected--CNN, NYT, NPR, WaPo--
shamelessly twisted facts and spun deliberatly misleading narratives, even on
their front pages. CNN now acts indignant when Trump calls them fake news, but
because of what they did, they've made him not _entirely_ wrong, and I'm
annoyed that they gave him that ammunition.

I think the best way to combat fake news is to have trusted, respected news
organizations. But now both the right and the left no longer fully trust these
organizations, so people have started looking elsewhere. IMO, the only way to
fix it is for these organizations to start reporting honestly to try to regain
our trust---so I think fake news is going to continue to be a problem.

Disclaimer: I know that CNN/NYT/NPR/WaPo propaganda is nothing compared to Fox
News/conservative media. But it was misleading enough to shatter the trust of
many people, including me.

~~~
s2g
> But it was misleading enough to shatter the trust of many people, including
> me.

Which story was so fake that you can't trust them anymore?

Honestly, I think people like you are a big part of the problem. OH you know
that places like Breitbart are worse, but you just can't bring yourself to
trust the Washington post.

Do you not see how much that sort of attitude contributes to the _much_ bigger
problem?

~~~
wycy
I mean there were constant examples throughout 2016, but here was a fun one to
rewatch:

[https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/17/cenk_ugyu...](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/17/cenk_ugyur_cnn_never_showed_you_what_really_happened_at_nevada_dem_convention.html)

In the wake of Wikileaks revealing that what CNN called a baseless conspiracy
theory was actually true, this was a fun trip down memory lane.

~~~
jacquesm
CNN gets stuff wrong from time to time, sometimes badly wrong. But I would
stop at seeing this as a structural problem, they're not lying wholesale, all
the time like Fox does and even though I'm fairly sure they have a bias - just
like almost every other news organization - unless you are hyper partisan
yourself it likely won't influence you.

The Sanders/Clinton controversy may be a huge issue to you but what the likes
of Breitbart, Fox and so on are doing is on an entirely different scale. All
this besides the fact that Clinton stood a much better chance against Trump
than Bernie Sanders ever did. She even won the popular vote.

~~~
wycy
> All this besides the fact that Clinton stood a much better chance against
> Trump than Bernie Sanders ever did. She even won the popular vote.

I mean, every poll at the time suggested otherwise:
[https://imgur.com/a/K9Rzr](https://imgur.com/a/K9Rzr) Additionally, Sanders
is a guy who did very well with exactly the demographic that HRC lost. But I
digress--

I agree that Breitbart and Fox are far worse than the rest of corporate media,
and I still watch CNN/MSNBC every weekday. But I go into it with a much higher
level of skepticism and the knowledge that I need to seek other sources of
information if I want to know what's going on beside the corporate-friendly
narrative.

~~~
jacquesm
That's Quinnipac which is about as biased towards the GOP as they can get away
with. The game ahead of a general election is to try to sow as much division
in the camp of your opponent and to get them to elect the weakest candidate
that increases your own chances during the real thing.

The main takeaway for me is that elections are more often than not choosing
the 'least bad' candidate rather than the best candidate. I personally don't
think Clinton should have run at all, but I think the same about Sanders and
Trump. All of them have substantial baggage and in some cases serious doubt
about their qualifications and mental stability.

If those three people were the best that could be found in a country of 300+
million people then that's indicative of a much larger problem. I do think
that neither Sanders nor Clinton would have fucked up to the extent that
Donald Trump is currently doing. If this really will go on for almost three
more years you'll be able to say you were there when America lost its place.

And no doubt CNN will cover it.

~~~
wycy
I believe you’re thinking of Rasmussen, not Quinnipiac. Q is respected,
Rasmussen is known to be GOP-leaning:
[https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-
ratings/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/)

Otherwise I agree, we are living a major part of history.

~~~
jacquesm
Ah yes, got that mixed up, thank you for the correction.

------
ILikeConemowk
>Why is fake news so prevalent?

Because of fake news?

I find this phenomenon kind of pleasing, intellectually tickling? I mean, like
recursion.

Everyone asks why the phenomenon exists without realizing they are the sole
creators. It's like a merry go round, each outlet trying to "catch" the
baddies without realizing _they_ are the problem.

The MSM and the people within are so desperate for clicks and views that they
spend their whole lives hopelessly slinging bullshit, "fact checks",
retractions, hyperbole, "OP-eds" which are actually propaganda disguised as
opinion and every other thinkable form of garbage content aimed solely at
manipulating us.

Then there's those of us who just sit quietly on the sidelines and laugh, and
then we turn the talking heads off.

~~~
moate
#WakeUpSheeple. Cool Story Bro.

~~~
Varcht
#TheCakeIsNotaLie You tell him, bro.

------
arunbahl
> Ultimately, legal tools should be limited to problems they can solve. Fake
> news is not one of these problems.

False. Replace "fake news" with "false advertising", and there's ample
precedent for how this might be achieved. We've got laws at both state and
federal levels that make deceptive or misleading claims illegal, to protect
consumers; protecting consumers of news media needn't be any more problematic
constitutionally.

~~~
nokcha
Imposing criminal or civil liability for false news has a chilling effect on
someone reporting even true news if there is reason to believe that the
government might disagree with the reporting. I certainly wouldn't trust
Trump's DOJ not to abuse such a law. Just look at how the Alien And Sedition
Acts were abused.

Supreme Court jurisdiction holds that commercial speech (advertising) is less
protected than other speech. This is why laws against false advertising are
usually upheld while similar laws against other kinds of false speech would be
ruled unconstitutional.

------
GCU-Empiricist
“If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has
long been known that one horse can run faster than another — but which one?
Differences are crucial.” R.A. Heinlein

------
jlbbellefeuille
I just won a freedom of speech lawsuit against NYC for my startup VUGO. We do
not want to make governmental entities the judges of what information is fact
or opinion, because the government will pick winners and losers based on what
benefits them.

The good news is that the judicial branch is in favor of protecting the 1st
amendment in all it's forms (press, political, religious and commercial)

Although a strong 1st amendment means that the responsibility falls on the
citizen.

Caveat Emptor...In other words the the consumer of media alone is responsible
for checking the quality and suitability of information before a accepting
something as fact.

We need to do a better job of helping people think critically, I don't know
what the answer is, but I do know that government regulation of Free Speech is
definitely NOT the answer having fought content-based censorship in NYC.

------
hirundo
Fake news is not a market failure, because there is a large and robust market
for fake news. It's driven by our wishes, whims and dreams. To defeat it
you'll have to start by defeating those.

------
cabaalis
Using words that do not directly harass, libel, or slander another person or
group is harmless, even if those words are charged and disagreed with by the
majority. The actions that people take upon hearing or reading words are
solely their own.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I would like to agree, but there are some strong counterexamples[1], though by
the same token, I find it hard to accept that we would make policies designed
to think for people on the grounds they can't be trusted to do so themselves.
It points to a means-end problem at the very least.

1:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm)

------
s2g
> It does not distinguish between facts and opinion

Neither does the author of this piece, apparently.

> Courts cannot become fact-checkers

Why not?

------
frgtpsswrdlame
>The marketplace for ideas will ensure that true news trumps fake news.

Why would I believe this? It hasn't worked so far and I think there is some
misplaced faith here. Perhaps the media is facing a backlash because of their
basic hypocrisy in the modern era. CNN, Washington Post, NYTimes and more are
quick to criticize Trump which I'm fine with, he's in a position of power and
he's not handling it well, checking his power and public perception is
literally the purpose of media. The problem is that the media has abdicated
this same duty everywhere else where it has been convenient for them. An
example is why is this criticism of Facebook so linked to Trump's election? We
deserved this level of coverage years ago. Blaming this all on obviously fake
news on social media sidesteps why people believe those things in the first
place - conventional media has repeatedly betrayed the trust of people.

Take this recent article that was posted here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642683)

There is a lot of good criticism of the author in those comments, how she pre-
formulated a story, repeatedly encountered suspicious roadblocks in her
investigation and then because she couldn't write the perspective she wanted,
dropped the story entirely. What am I supposed to call this uncritical
coverage of Theranos other than Fake News?

And even there I can't exactly pin it on that journalist, it wasn't just her
that encountered these things and didn't write about them, it was lots of
journalists which points to a systemic issue.

All of which is a really longwinded way to say this piece made me sad because
it _is_ the 'marketplace of ideas' that led us to an era of actually fake
news. Journalists like Jenny Gold are simply responding to the incentives of
that marketplace. And that other journalists inside this system, like Sandeep,
have no creative solutions for how to bring back real investigative journalism
which questions and speaks truth to power _in all it 's forms_ and simply rely
on old clichés does not bode well for the future.

~~~
s2g
> An example is why is this criticism of Facebook so linked to Trump's
> election?

Because nobody cares until something goes horribly wrong.

IT's the same reason why infrastructure spending is non-existent until a whole
bunch of people start dying.

