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France's President Macron Wants To Block Websites During Elections To Fight 'Fake News' (gizmodo.com)
French President Emmanuel Macron has a rather extreme approach to combat fake news: ban entire websites. In a speech to journalists on Wednesday, Macron said he planned to introduce new legislation to strictly regulate fake news during online political campaigns. Gizmodo reports: His proposal included a number of measures, most drastically "an emergency legal action" that could enable the government to either scrap "fake news" from a website or even block a website altogether. "If we want to protect liberal democracies, we must be strong and have clear rules," Macron said. "When fake news are spread, it will be possible to go to a judge... and if appropriate have content taken down, user accounts deleted and ultimately websites blocked."
Macron, himself a target of election interference, also outlined some less extreme measures in his speech yesterday. He proposed more rigid requirements around transparency, specifically in relation to online ads during elections. According to the Guardian, Macron said the legislation would force platforms to publicly identify who their advertisers are, as well as limit how much they can spend on ads over the course of an election campaign.
Macron, himself a target of election interference, also outlined some less extreme measures in his speech yesterday. He proposed more rigid requirements around transparency, specifically in relation to online ads during elections. According to the Guardian, Macron said the legislation would force platforms to publicly identify who their advertisers are, as well as limit how much they can spend on ads over the course of an election campaign.
I can think of no possible way this could be abused as political censorship to, say, protect the incumbent government from inconvenient reporting.
This is dangerous. The government cannot be trusted to decide what is fake news and what is not? If this were implemented in the United States, the Trump Administration would probably block any news about the Russia investigation. France had a runoff involving a similar candidate to Trump, Marine Le Pen.
I can think of no possible way this could be abused as political censorship
While I detect a certain sarcastic tone I think you might actually be correct, not because they would not abuse it but simply because censoring the web does not work regardless of reason. Any affected website will just move to another country. This will apply both to real fake news sites as well as those targeted for political reasons. The can make it illegal in France but not Canada, the US or any other country with strong free speech laws.
Macron has a rather extreme approach to combat fake news: ban entire websites.
Flowchart of how they decide to block websites:
1) Does website have negative material about Macron? Goto 3.
2) Do not block website. End.
3) Block website. End.
I could see making some response center, that countered material found on some websites, but even there you can game the content all day long, and even if the corrections are wrong no-one will fix it till after Election Day... best to just let people say what they want and have huge flamewars online over it so no-one reads fake news because they are tired of all news.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We as humans are animals and as such can be victims of our own nature. In this context, it's a well understood fact that humans have a tendency to make poor long-term decisions based on sudden emotionally charged events. After the flood of neurotransmitters has subsided, we are much better at making long-term decisions.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
From his globalist banker handlers.
we are just rolling over and letting the nazi take France all armed forces will be ordered to lay down there arms and there will no more Elections or free press
It'll be counted as poor French. Vive le!
Advertisements are exaggerated information at best, but often lies, are paid for by increasing product prices, a kind of tax that everyone of us has to pay as the advertisements budgets are paid by the advertisements and deducted from profits, i.e. in the end the consumer pays.
In addition, it is a time waster.
When it is not about product advertisement, like for politics, advertisements converts money into influence directly, i.e. money equals power. This is automatically at odds with a democracy ("one man one vote"), where each individual should have an equal weight, the rich should not have more weight.
Now they even start to undermine the democratic process.
Advertisements should be generally banned, or at least made 100% transparent. Don't think that advertisements enable free products such as this website, in the end we pay for it ourselves, just a bit indirectly. Taking quite a bit of collateral damage for granted (security issues, waste of time/screen, getting wrong incentives through lies, payment by the victims themselves).
Well, they should definitely be banned from lying. But technically they already are. They just keep getting away with it anyway.
AMD is also theoretically susceptible to a Meltdown attack, it's just the current one did not quite work, but they still think it is possible... now that people know the technique expect AMD to follow in the next week or so (if not sooner).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If "fake news" is really influencing an election, perhaps we're just not ready for democracy?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
block just the commentary/news/political web sites ;) Right individuals with no clue!
Is this individual a real player, or a problem? That is the question?
one man's fake news is another man's truth. YMMV.
Just outlaw the whole advertisment bullshit surrounding elections. It's ALL fake news anyway.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
France and the US are more alike than I thought.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A couple of points:
1) NSA did have a (FISA) warrant. The fact that it was illegally obtained does not actually invalidate the warrant: once it's issued, it's valid, even though the evidence used was the fake Dossier that was the product of a foreign intelligence employees such as the British spook dude, and the Clintons colluding with Russia government officials to suborn the "peepee evidence" testimony. It doesn't even matter that numerous laws were broken, the warrant is still real.
2) Don Jr is guilty. And the fact that Obama admin has colluded with the Russians to actively entrap Don Jr. does not make it less of a crime for Don Jr to have spoken to a Russian.
3) It wasn't the Russian military. It was the Russian government employee who happened to be issued a visa by the Obama State department, in violation of the rules. Still, it's a crime to speak to any Russian at all. If you see one on the street, run away please.
4) Since the warrant was valid, the evidence must be there. The fact that is hasn't been released or leaked after a year means just one thing: there is actually too much evidence to release/leak. I think the CNN has all of it, but they are trying to edit down years of illegality of Trump Nazi Russia to just a single 1-2 hour clip. Too much work to be done, since Trump is so guilty.
5) Trump will be impeached any second now. I am going to hold my breath until he is impeached. Join me please.
Bankster stooges sure do hate freedom of political speech.
Only *approved* fake news will be allowed ^_^
Requiem for the American Dream
But right now both sides can use that tactic, that's called free speech. When only one side gets to tell their bullshit that is censorship. The fact that anyone could make a serious pitch for censoring free speech is chilling.
That noble sentiment still leaves us with the problem that one side is unscrupulously spreading a pack of outright lies, incredibly vicious character assassinations and even seems to be willing to stoop so low as to enlist the security services of foreign governments to accomplish that goal while the other is not willing to sink that low. Your solution seems to be that both sides should enthusiastically join in the race to the bottom of the sea of corruption, lies and moral bankruptcy. You also jump to the conclusion that a proposition to clamp down on news sites that are spewing obvious lies will automatically lead to the complete muzzling of one side in an election. It's the same overblown knee-jerk reaction as: "Patriots Arm Yourselves!!!!! Obama and the ZOG is coming to take a way our guns!!!" every time somebody suggests a simple reform like requiring background checks on all gun sales. It seems like a reasonable requirement to make, even in an election campaign, that both sides stick to something that at least resembles some kind factual debate. What we currently have, in the name of freedom of speech, is the complete freedom disseminate cleverly designed propaganda with a complete disregard for the consequences. Freedom of speech means you can say anything you want but it does not mean that you are also liberated from responsibility for any consequences of what you say. I'm not saying that censorship is the right way to go, but there has to be some set of well defined and penalties for spreading outright lies cleverly targeted and disguised as news. That Comet Ping Pong/Pizzagate incident for example ended without anybody getting killed but there is no guarantee we'll be that lucky next time. So what do we do the next time somebody falls for a harebrained conspiracy theory, walks into a pizza restaurant and actually mows down the staff and half the customers with an AR-15? ... award the news outlets responsible for disseminating the lies he fell for a free speech award? ... an "Excellence in Political Propaganda" prize? If we are not going to plug the pipes spewing sewage into our news-scape we are somehow going to have to ensure that there are really well defined limits to how outrageous your lies can get.
Can anybody tell me where it is written in French law that there exist unlimited freedom of speech in France, as once envisionned in the USA ?
(I accept any legifrance link)
I highly doubt anything like this exists. Mostly for a lack of necessity.
France has a rich history of sending its governments to hell if they try to pull something funny that's not supported by the people. When you have a population like this, you don't need some paper telling your government what not to do, the people are pretty capable of doing that themselves.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
France has also a long history of law writing and selective enforcement...
The nearest of free speech legislation is a 1881 law about freedom of the press, where papers can write anything, as long as some publication director is personnally responsible of what is written. It is the basis for legislating blog posts, where a bad comment about a business on social media can cost an individual thousands of euros. As for revolutions, french citizens are globally reticents about arms, except for hunters, and they no longuer use pitchforks to work.
And teaching poeple how not to fall to obvious snake oil salesmen and ovious trolls is how you should handle it.
Not blocking the free speech on reasons of "idiots speaking".
---
(It's sad that this is coming from the French president, as they are one of the few countries to actually teach "media" in school and having pilot programs to teach kids how to spot urban myths/click bait/fake news/etc.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Revolutions don't stop at torches and pitchforks. That's so 1800s. Today, you light cars instead of torches and the thrown brick has replaced the pitchfork.
Revolutions change. Why would the most revolutionary thing of them all stay the same?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It hit me a couple of years ago that the French and some other similar countries just look at democracy very differently than the countries more like the USA do. In some senses I think it's both styles prize equality and individual liberty. On the USA side we prioritize individual liberty when there is a conflict between the two but on the French side, they prioritize equality.
So like one outgrowth of that is on the USA side, we take great pains to protect against the "tyranny of the majority" and make sure that minority positions are protected (well, at least in theory that's what we try to do). Whereas in France, they've got no problem trampling on the minority if that's what the majority wants.
That's why France has so many stronger positions against things like foreign businesses. Most of the French people are just fine sticking it to Amazon and so France sticks it to Amazon.
Lets do this in the U.S. We can finally block CNN. Good riddance.
What stands our about your argument is the concern that free speech, if 'abused' (my term), could be dangerous in that it could spur some to commit despicable crimes.
More amazing that that, which is possible a genuine problem, is that it is ALREADY HAPPENING IN THE US.
The response to Trump's inauguration? Riots, violence, looting in Washington DC. College campuses are now the sites of violent demonstrations against, and even attacks upon, non-Leftist speakers.
A man actually went to a baseball field and shot Republican members of Congress, with the intent to murder them.
Which side of this argument both intended to and may have suppressed free speech, and also used physical violence to both suppress speech and attempt to murder the opposition?
Which side needs to be recognized as sufficiently dangerous that it needs to be identified as such and defeated at the polls?
Which side needs to be held accountable for the rhetoric they spread that leads to this unacceptable violence?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I see what you did there...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"I think some kind of regulation wouldn't hurt, especially during elections. I'm not entirely sure if this is the right move, though."
And so goes that right... 'some kind'is still regulation.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's not like governments would call anything that the existing occupants don't like "fake news" ...
"Typical liberal response - limit free speech."
No, the typical liberal response is to limit their opposition's speech.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. H. L. Mencken US editor (1880 - 1956)"
"It's fun to obey the machine" - Ralph Wiggum
Done.
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
I'd say the nazis are ideologically closer to the right wing candidate that Macron beat. I'd have a lot of concerns about any sort of censorship (especially one with political ties), but you have to admit there's a problem when you get people believing stuff like "Clinton ran a sex ring out of a pizza place" and some nut job walks in there with a gun.
The closest specific 'legislation' you're likely to find, to the US ideal as embodied in the constitution, is Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights which became binding on governments in 2009. Article 11 States:
Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions
and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless
of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
As always, the devil is in the detail...
Oh, Federalist - the true home of fake news. They even fake the fake news list. Let's list a couple of lies:
1) Federalist says that there was a fake surge in transgender suicides. This is not true, the linked article cites the increased number of suicide hotline calls.
2) They cite the Medium article that says that there are possible signs of fraud: https://medium.com/@jhalderm/w... - it's true. Statistical analysis shows that the resulting configuration is quite unlikely.
3) Multiple government climate change sites got purged: https://gizmodo.com/another-go...
In short, how to tell that a conservative lies? Easy, his lips are moving.
Hitler would have considered letters with umlauts and that beta-looking thing that means lowercase double s as basic text.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
> All the government has to do is legislate as to consider gullibility
> as a mental health issue and have the person go to mandatory
> philosophy classes to learn the basics of logic and reasoning.
Da Tavarisch. In old USSR, we did not jail dissidents for opposing wonderful communism. We confined them to mental treatment centers, because you have to be mentally ill, if not downright crazy, to oppose wonderful communism.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Censorship is unacceptable in a democracy. Unfortunately, the price of freedom is watching your country devolve into a mess of propaganda and messaging designed to exaserbate the fears and anger of the lowest common denominator.
George Carlin had it right: it's one big, entertaining show. Might as well grab some popcorn.
That's how they got Martha Stewart. Couldn't get her for insider trading so they accused her of lying to federal agents.
http://coveringbusiness.com/20...
lucm, indeed.