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March 28, 2024, 03:11:26 PM

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Fake news

Started by Zetetic, March 18, 2019, 08:30:29 PM

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Zetetic

QuoteBritons could be better protected against "fake news" in the future under proposals outlined by the government.

Citizens, public servants and organisations would be be held liable for posting "obviously false" "socially damaging" information on the internet or reporting it in the media.

The proposals are part of a set of measures in a white paper drafted under Digital Minister, Margot James.

Under the proposals the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) would be able to request that websites remove untrue information. If websites failed to do so, then the DCMS could then ask broadband providers to block the website.

Those who posted such information would then face a significant fine.

"I would like to thank everyone who participated in our Internet Safety Strategy consultation. We had an excellent response to our online survey and we have engaged with a wide range of users, including young people, charities and technology companies," said Mrs James in a statement.

"It is clear that this is an issue which is close to the heart of many people in the UK and across the world. In the coming months and years, we will lead the work to ensure that the UK not only has the world's best digital economy, but is also the safest place to be online."

"Fake news" law considered for UK - BBC News

Fambo Number Mive

i can't access the BBC article but this sounds very dystopian and could easily be used by the government against dissidents.

So the websites would face a fine if they don't remove untrue information - is their a satire defence? Does this apply to people who post alleged fake news on their social media?

Who decides what is fake news?

gne

We could teach people logic but nah, let's just mind-control everyone instead.

Ambient Sheep

Next step: the people who post that stuff are defined as mentally ill and sent off to psychiatric insitutions to be "re-educated" just as in the old Soviet Union.

What happens to sites as diverse as UFO researchers and, indeed, like Craig Murray's?

Depends how they define "socially damaging", I guess.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on March 18, 2019, 08:35:30 PMi can't access the BBC article...

Yup that link is broken.  And Google doesn't find those words so it never even made their cache.

Either this is very chilling or Zetetic is playing some kind of meta-joke.

Sadly I suspect it might be the former.

Howj Begg

A+ well played Zetetic.


Twed

So who is going to control what is the correct news? The people who have used logic to support Israel or the people who have used logic to support Palestine? The ones who think <political figure x> is antisemitic or the ones who don't?

How fucking dare anybody pretend that there is one arbiter of truth in the media landscape. That's so suffocating, dumb and evil.

garnish

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on March 18, 2019, 09:00:46 PM
Yup that link is broken.  And Google doesn't find those words so it never even made their cache.

Either this is very chilling or Zetetic is playing some kind of meta-joke.

Sadly I suspect it might be the former.

Zetetic whispered to me just now that you can read up on it at blue waffle news.com lol

gne

We could go the whole hog and teach the dumb animals about rhetoric and even grammar.

Ambient Sheep

Well isn't that fucking hilarious?

Hahahaha.

Consider my sides well and truly split.

Annoyed with myself that I didn't click the DCMS link in his post to find it eight years out of date.  He should have included this far more up-to-date one instead:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf -- "Disinformation and 'fake news': Final Report", published 18th February 2019.

which googling some of the words in his OP found me.


Seriously, I have enough stress in my life without spurious bullshit like this.

biggytitbo

Repressive tryant and dictator Vladimir Putin just brought in a 'fake new' law, thank god we'd never consider anything like that in our free society!

garnish

I can't believe you've done this Zetetic

Edit: I can believe that Biggy has jumped in without clicking on the link to the story, though.

Zetetic

#12
Right, so I think it's run its course. Apologies Ambient Sheep for winding you up - that wasn't my intention, although I'll admit that it was meant to be a bit of a joke that I'd posted some fake news, under the title "fake news", about fake news.

As the report (of the DCMS select committee) you've linked to highlights, there is a White Paper planned at some point in the near future. I believe it was originally planned for late last year but the lack of government has slightly slowed its production. It probably won't read quite as I've suggested ... but it might go some of that way.

A more proximal source of inspiration was TASS - Putin signs law on blocking fake news - as perhaps biggy guessed. (Be aware that, I suspect, TASS can't or won't pay actual translators and that the article suffers accordingly.) For a number of reasons, I thought that having a go at transposing this to the UK (and the BBC News style, as best I could) would be slightly entertaining.

biggytitbo

My rye remark works either way. We're largely outsourcing the censoring of 'fake news' (eg, news the establishment doesnt like) to the large social media companies and various noxious neocon think tanks, who are now just arms length tools of the state.

garnish

Quote from: Zetetic on March 18, 2019, 10:00:59 PM
Right, so I think it's run it's course. Apologies Ambient Sheep for winding you up - that wasn't my intention, although I'll admit that it was meant to be a bit of a joke that I'd posted some fake news, under the title "fake news", about fake news.

I don't get it

Zetetic

Quote from: biggytitbo on March 18, 2019, 10:02:21 PM
My rye remark
Hmm.

QuoteWe're largely outsourcing the censoring of 'fake news' ...
I think there's an interesting discussion there.

Is putting disclaimers on social media posts much the same as this new law in Russia? Would a British law along the same lines be irrelevant given that?

(I think the answers are "no", and that we should continue to oppose such developments here, and build and support tools that make them harder to enforce anywhere.)


Twed

Oh I see. Well done, I suppose. I guess it worked because you're probably by default a "trusted source" for most of us.

garnish

Quote from: Zetetic on March 18, 2019, 10:00:59 PM
A more proximal source of inspiration was TASS - Putin signs law on blocking fake news - as perhaps biggy guessed. (Be aware that, I suspect, TASS can't or won't pay actual translators and that the article suffers accordingly.) For a number of reasons, I thought that having a go at transposing this to the UK (and the BBC News style, as best I could) would be slightly entertaining.



I wasn't talking about the UK at all

Zetetic

Should've left it two weeks. At least then I'd have been a complete twat.

garnish

Can you explain the joke again please

biggytitbo

Quote from: Zetetic on March 18, 2019, 10:08:23 PM
Hmm.
I think there's an interesting discussion there.

Is putting disclaimers on social media posts much the same as this new law in Russia? Would a British law along the same lines be irrelevant given that?


Well it's a lot more than labelling something with 'this is bullshit', it's the active suppression of alternative news sources.

Zetetic

Which probably bring us back to regulation providing a positive set of rights for users of web services as being the only solution, unless you're convinced that boycotts or decentralised platforms will solve things.

Zetetic

And, regarding Russia, I guess part of it is that as we in the West promote concepts without much caution and don't fail to provide approaches to countering their abuse (like ensuring that positive rights regarding freedom of expression are meaningful), then approaches like Russia's become slightly more acceptable elsewhere.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Twed on March 18, 2019, 10:13:01 PM
Oh I see. Well done, I suppose. I guess it worked because you're probably by default a "trusted source" for most of us.

There you go, then: a valuable lesson. I have to say, the 'BBC article' is very well written. It had me fooled. I don't know what's the matter with you miserable cunts.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Zetetic on March 18, 2019, 10:36:13 PM
Which probably bring us back to regulation providing a positive set of rights for users of web services as being the only solution, unless you're convinced that boycotts or decentralised platforms will solve things.

I don't think expecting the establishment to come up with a positive set of rights is any less naive than boycotts or decentralised platforms.

Zetetic

I don't expect "the establishment" to, but I think it's something that special interest groups (Liberty? ORG? EFF UK?) have a chance to push for - particularly if we ever see the Tories leave office.




I can understand being pissed off by my OP, and I should have given more thought to cueing that it was a deceit. Maybe pointed the BBC News link to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7751200.stm.

garnish

Quote from: Zetetic on March 18, 2019, 10:53:32 PM
I can understand being pissed off by my OP, and I should have given more thought to cueing that it was a deceit. Maybe pointed the BBC News link to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7751200.stm.

Punching down on the poor are we now

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Zetetic on March 18, 2019, 10:53:32 PM
I can understand being pissed off by my OP

I don't. Self-referential jokes are good.

Quote from: garnish on March 18, 2019, 11:00:22 PM
Punching down on the poor are we now

That article is a CaB meme.

BlodwynPig

Good one, Zet. No harm done. Bit of a relief...for now, at least.