
A German proposal to criminalize fake news - vezycash
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161215/22231236295/now-germany-wants-to-criminalize-fake-news.shtml
======
yomly
Tabloids have a long history of fabricating stories. Will they be held
accountable?

Whenever I read about fake-news it is generally associated with the alt-right
but people seem to forget that the established news are equally as guilty. I
recall losing a lot of faith in the NYT when I read the Amazon expose and felt
it read more like a vendetta piece/sensational than truthful objective
journalism.

~~~
chc
There's a vast difference between a story that doesn't do the subject justice
and a story that is completely false. Trying to put an unfairly negative spin
on things is bad, for sure, but simply lying is worse. I don't think you've
seen a lot of the fake news that has people concerned lately if you think
they're equal.

~~~
jerf
There's a motte & bailey argument going on here where when people talk about
banning fake news, they want you to just think about the completely made up
stuff, but as soon as you're not looking, they mean to apply the restrictions
the stuff that they ideologically don't like.

I'm yet to see a definition of "fake news" that applies to Breitbart but
doesn't apply to the New York Times without referring to ideology.

I'm also sort of curious how so many left-leaning people seem to be so excited
to hand this power of labeling "fake news" and censoring it to governments or
other powerful entities as we're what in is at least plausibly a large-scale
swing to populist right-wing power gains in Western civilization. Maybe that
will turn out not to be the case, but it's certainly a valid interpretation of
the events of the last couple of years. Are you all _sure_ this is the best
time to be talking about powers to muzzle news sources? We're most likely
minutes away from the Electoral College electing Trump as I write this, and
while Merkel may still be in power in Germany it's not exactly like the winds
are blowing her way and she's had to play some very defensive political games
lately. Who's actually going to end up with the power to define "fake news"?

~~~
chc
That may be so. I was just arguing against the false equivalence people are
drawing between coverage that seems a bit biased and creating fake news out of
whole cloth. It's similar to arguing against securities fraud laws because ads
that show somebody getting excited for a bland hamburger are also deceptive.

My point is basically: No, some things are worse than other things.

Anyway, there may be bad actors advocating for fake news laws, but that
doesn't change the fact that fake news is a harmful thing that needs to be
dealt with somehow. I agree with a lot of what you say, but I'm also not in
favor of throwing my hands up and saying, "Oh well, we're just screwed."

------
sqeaky
Clearly this is an attempt at censorship which is evil and stupid; But I want
to step back and think about what the practical issues of trying to ban fake
news.

How does one differentiate between silly things that clearly satire like the
onion and extremists like flat-earthers that cleared ought to be the target of
satire?

Let's presume all the Facebook and fakenews servers are outside of Germany, or
whatever metaphorical country, then how are the laws suppose to stop them?
Block that site in the country, that doesn't even work in China?

~~~
danieldk
_Clearly this is an attempt at censorship which is evil and stupid;_

Why should defamation laws that apply to newspapers and other media not apply
to social media?

Another issue is that defamation spreads much quicker through social media
than most traditional means and it is harder to hold persons accountable
(especially when they are not in the same country).

So, it makes sense to evaluate what defamation means in the digital age. The
parliamentary and judicial processes should show what is feasible and within
bounds of the constitution.

(I understand the frustration. Are you a big ad customer? You can call
Facebook and get them to assist you immediately. Are you the victim of
provably incorrect personal attacks, no way you can get Facebook to help.
Unless you cause a big media storm.)

~~~
sqeaky
> Why should defamation laws that apply to newspapers and other media not
> apply to social media?

Because social media everyone talking to everyone, not a (hopefully) trained
and responsible person attempting to be a source of truth addressing the
masses.

I am also against libel laws and anti-defamation beyond the most minimal
required to prevent fraud. When you start legislating truth it is only a
matter of time until you have a state run ministry of truth.

------
_rpd
How will the law define "fake news"? This is not a minor problem.

"Contains a factual error, beyond reasonable doubt?"

"Likely to mislead, on the balance of probabilities?"

"At least one non-typographical error due to journalistic negligence?"

It would be very easy for the vast majority of news articles to fall within
the scope of a broadly drafted "fake news" law.

------
redthrowaway
So the government will now decide which media sources the public is allowed to
consume.

That'll end well.

~~~
okreallywtf
What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow people to intentionally
mislead people for their own gain?

I know a cynic will say "well thats what media does!" but no, it doesn't. Not
at the level that the current breed of fake news and propaganda is doing.
Exaggeration and taking things out of context are one thing (and in some cases
nearly as bad), but totally inventing stories about people and using that to
manipulate people is awful. I don't think "outlawing" it is the right way to
go about it but there has to be a label that says "This is not a reputable
organization" so that people that don't know better don't stumble in there and
not know the difference and end up ready to shoot up a pizza place to save
some imaginary children.

What has go to with this though is a totally open algorithm for declaring
something fake news, essentially a non-partisan fact-checked breakdown of
exactly how some source was declared to be "fake" and maybe some other
automated metrics.

Granted, this will not catch the people who desperately want to believe the
fake news or who already believe it, it is just to keep more gullible people
from stumbling into the trap. Just like Chrome warns you when a cert isn't
valid, why not say "hey you are leaving the beaten path of facts, proceed at
your own risk". I'm not saying its up to google but search engines are a
logical choice, but it has to be done transparently and there has to be an
appeals process in case it was a mistake.

~~~
redthrowaway
>What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow people to intentionally
mislead people for their own gain?

Yes? That's kind of one of the founding principles of liberal democracy. It
was a good idea in 1791, and it's still a good idea today.

The left is flipping its shit about "fake news" these days, but even in the US
they've gone through _far_ worse eras in terms of news reliability. The fact
that you used to have gatekeepers who were more or less honest is an artifact
of the startup costs of the television and newspaper industries, not some
nirvanal state that has collapsed into darkness.

Seriously, go take a look at some of the shit pamphleteers were up to in the
1800s. The state of affairs today is nothing.

Democracy can survive people lying. It _can 't_ survive granting the
government the ability to determine which "facts" the people are allowed to
believe.

~~~
okreallywtf
>Democracy can survive people lying. It can't survive granting the government
the ability to determine which "facts" the people are allowed to believe.

This only holds assuming we have time to work things out naturally -
unfortunately that is not the case at least in the context of climate change
to ignore all other issues. Of course if you drink the fake-news coolaid
you'll debate that climate change is happening or that its not man-made or
wherever the goal-post has been moved to today. Hey everyone's opinion is the
same though right? Your fact is my fiction!

We're not talking the esoterics of democratic theory, we're talking the basic
ability to educate people well enough to make decisions affecting the survival
of our species as we know it. To me its very similar to taking no action on
climate change because the market will eventually handle it. It all assumes
sufficient stability for sufficient time and that may not be a safe assumption
anymore.

I never suggested the government specifically take action to say who can say
what, but that doesn't mean that there can't be an open ranking system used by
search engines and social media to people from accidentally falling into fake
news through a ad that looks like a link from a more reputable location.

------
x2398dh1
Lots of opinion here, no real data. The one chart from the pew research center
is how people, "feel," about an issue. OK...so what?

Ironically, Hacker News is censored by Y-Combinator, but no one on this thread
seems to mind. As soon as it's a government body however, many people on this
particular thread are up-in-arms. So one thing we do know for certain is that
stated intent about censorship is different than actual behavior, within the
context of our discussion. How can we improve this conversation? In general,
people love censorship if it benefits themselves, (in the case of Hacker News,
keeping a non-post-September environment), but they don't like the idea of it
potentially damaging free speech and causing societal dissent overall.

I don't know the answer here, but I was reminded of something interesting I
read years ago, about how we can, "measure" the type of censorship going on.
There have been many studies that have come out measuring the speed and
duration and types of Chinese censorship, and it's really interesting; here is
an example:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512231/computer-
scientist...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512231/computer-scientists-
measure-the-speed-of-censorship-on-chinas-twitter/)

I know there are ways to measure censorship, I have never seen a structured
approach to measuring internet censorship that already exists in Hacker News
or the type of astroturfing that is done by the US Government already, etc.
Those types of articles I think would heighten the discussion from the current
state of, "hurr durr Government censorship universally bad in all
circumstances, regardless of whether it's blatantly false."

------
badlogic
I wonder if a better approach would be to make critical media consumption
mandatory in schools. This approach seems like a whack-a-mole game.

------
thhtoewawyaya
Incredibly naive.

The most dangerous results of fake news are such things as yellow cake --
which was published by the new York times.

This is censorship, plain and simple.

------
cygx
Some details about the measures under discussion:
[http://www.dw.com/en/500000-euro-fines-for-fake-news-on-
face...](http://www.dw.com/en/500000-euro-fines-for-fake-news-on-facebook-in-
germany/a-36806244)

------
empath75
So, there are a few kinds of fake news, in no particular order:

1) Clickbait made purely to attract clicks for the purposes of earning ad
revenue. It may be partisan, but it's not motivated by partisanship.

2) Sloppy or flat out bad reporting by mainstream media sources, including
state media like the BBC. This might or might not be motivated by partisanship
on the part of the reporter or media outlet, but generally these institutions
operate under a code of ethics and will issue corrections, etc.

3) Radical political media. Far left and far right bloggers, terrorist groups,
hate groups, etc.

4) State sponsored or funded propaganda. This is media purely produced for the
purposes of achieving some policy objective, particularly in a foreign
country. They have absolutely no ethics guidelines and only use the truth in
as much as it helps them, and will happily lie, otherwise.

I think the first two can be attacked by going after advertisers and platforms
that fund it, and in the case of 'independent' state media, they seem to be
fairly responsive to criticism.

The latter two are really the most pernicious kind and the most difficult to
stop. The third, assuming they're domestic groups, can probably be hurt by
libel laws in particularly egregious cases, but really both of them would be
difficult to stop without imposing an oppressive censorship regime that would
shut down plenty of legitimate media and criticisms.

I think the only way to resolve it is through education and investigations
into the backgrounds of the worst offenders, and letting the public know who
is funding these groups and what their goals are. Ultimately, the 'mainstream'
media is going to have to get off its ass and actually do some reporting on
this.

Part of the reason this is such a problem, imo, to begin with is that the
mainstream media has served the wealthy and the elites for so long, that
people simply don't trust them. What we need is a populist mainstream media
organization which both has a real code of ethics and goes out of the way to
serve the needs of the masses rather than the ultra wealthy and advertisers.

------
Pigo
I suppose this is worrisome as a precedent, but I honestly could care less
what happens to companies that are nothing but an social media presence. I
can't think of anything we gain from their existence, and I pity the people
who rely on them for any sort of information. And I'm still not convinced they
really exist.

------
Mikeb85
Who gets to decide what news is actually fake? This is a rabbit hole that
leads to nowhere good - with legislation like this, the authorities become the
sole arbiters of truth.

So long democracy, was nice knowing you...

Edit - lol at all the comments suggesting that the government may abuse this
law getting down-voted.

------
detaro
dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13203211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13203211)

------
petre
Fake news = news that doesn't support the government's agenda.

Merkel is going down anyway in next year's elections. She invited 1M+ refugees
into Europe after taking a hardline on Greece. No amount of whitewashing is
going to fix this.

Just remember Hitler also banned _fake_ news in 1933 after the Reichstag Fire.

These are very interesting times indeed.

------
nisse72
How do you even define fake news? Or will also fiction be banned?

~~~
goerz
You could define it more or less to be synonymous to 'lie': knowingly
presenting false factual information. Fiction does not generally make factual
statement or if it does (e.g. in the case of satire) it is labeled as non-
factual.

------
metaphorm
so what happens when everyone starts accusing everyone of publishing "fake
news"?

~~~
goerz
They'd have to bring them to court

------
partycoder
Fake news can affect the economy negatively.

Traders, including trading bots use news as input.

~~~
cmdrfred
I was going to say that free speech in a fundamental human right but then you
mentioned the economy and I'm all on board for censorship.

~~~
partycoder
It's not really censorship. It's journalistic rigor.

\- In science, the scientific method requires you to present facts.

\- In the justice system, the burden of proof is on the party presenting an
accusation.

Now, journalistic reports can be considered products of sort that are the
source of significant revenue. Most products are subject to certain scrutiny
or regulation... why is journalism an exception? There needs to be
accountability.

Fake news are a disservice to society, hence the "fake" denomination.

~~~
cmdrfred
I look forward to reading your purposed constitutional amendment.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
It's the thought that counts. I like you Germany.

Edit: I'll miss those stories about the baby born with three heads, etc.

------
da_n
Much like the hideous legislation passed in the UK, at this point I just think
bring it. The more governments overtly undertake efforts to wrestle control of
the internet, sanitise and snoop every aspect of it, and slowly destroy it,
the greater an incentive to "fork the internet" becomes.

~~~
chippy
I also had a similar "chilling" thought and it took me back to when there was
no web where the world of information was only accessible in person at a
library.

------
zaroth
Free Speech by another name. The fakest thing about stories about fake news
are the stories themselves. The whole thing is so meta.

To anyone who thinks this is somehow a new phenomenon, please see
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre)

Self aware readers of all news anywhere know the truth; it's all "fake" it's
just a matter of degree and perspective.

~~~
jonny_eh
Fake news stories about Clinton running a child sex ring out of a DC pizza
parlor isn't a matter of "degree" or "perspective"

~~~
golemotron
“A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first
glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains,
moreover, forever imperceptible. Its laws and rules are not, however, harbored
in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is simply that they can never be
booked, in the present, into anything that could rigorously be called a
perception.” ― Jacques Derrida

