UK Parliamentary Committee Recommends Levy on Social Media to Defend Against Fake News

[Drak3]

Sieg heil Queen Elizabeth!

3 minutes ago, Arika S said:

so who gets to define whether or not something is "fake news"? Because if the UK government has shown anything in these last few years is that there are massive double standards when it comes to controversial topics

Those who control the mainstream media.

[Arika]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Sieg heil Queen Elizabeth!

Those who control the mainstream media.

so fake news = anything the government doesn't like. got it

[Drak3]

Just now, Arika S said:

so fake news = anything the government doesn't like. got it

Well, more the political party that controls the media doesn't like.

[mark_cameron]

9 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

The former was imprisoned for exposing various Muslim grooming gangs throughout, I believe London and the latter was banned from entering the United Kingdom on the grounds of “hate speech” from her Twitter page. 

 

They're going to leverage this protection as grounds to ban speech they don’t like, just like they’ve done before and then someone has to save them from their own damage. History repeats itself. 

Tommy Robinson was jailed as he commited a criminal act filming defendents/jurors outside of an ongoing criminal trial.

 

Please don't claim Tommy Robinson is some sort of victim. He isn't. His jailing has been a long time coming.

 

Nothing to do with this topic.

 

Other than he committed contempt of court streaming film to facebook from outside a crown court. Thereby jeopardizing the trial.

[mark_cameron]

8 hours ago, Commodus said:

Actually, Robinson was imprisoned for contempt of court, not exposing the gangs; they were already in the public spotlight.  He's also been convicted of fraud, illegally entering the US (ironic given his ideology), assault, threats... basically, he's the sort who knowingly flouts the law and then feigns outrage when the government actually enforces the law.

Yes. His post confirms what an utter mess things are when Americans can't even get basic facts right. Plus how false narratives can be pushed (in America) by those with agendas. Frequently of specific political orientation. Disseminated with clear inaccuracies.

[Tech_Dreamer]

i like the title that it goes by , defeating fake news is a really nice motive , but like anything political it's a trojan horse for some critical details being passed under the table along with it.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

The only logical answer is to tax the people who believe in the game new until they learn. But on a serious note I think most people don't have as much of an issue with the taxing if the tech companies but rather the legal burden put on websites with user uploaded content. I mean what would happen if linustechtips got fined for every wccftech article posted on the forum? It would be a big issue. 

Well if it ever gets established that Wccftech is guilty of publishing misinformation (not just in opinion but as in actual factually incorrect information that is damaging (ie to the same burden of proof as a defamation case)) then why not?  fine them,  it's pretty simply to bot screen for a URL that is on a blacklist. 

 

5 hours ago, Thaldor said:

As much as I wanted to agree with you and you point out a real problem with the internet as it is now and something must be done for that.

 

But making a vague law, that makes companies responsible for "misinformation" spread on their platform, or even flashing that card is a pandoras box. When you spread the spectrum of misinformation further than clear (for us) misinformation you end up with some really dark and deep problems which internet as it is fights against and actually makes things better. For example if this kind of "law" was in action globally, would we talk about Taiwan or Chinese Taipei? Would have we got information about the state of the Ukraine from the perspective of the EU and Ukraine or only from the perspective of the Russia? (I don't mean to talk about these, they are just examples)

I don't think they are suggesting a vague law.  Remember most laws are intentional open to interpretation so a judge or jury can apply the law as seen fit on a case by case basis.   I don't think it will stop people talking about things, It s likely to stop sites that have been proven to promote lies, but it isn't going to stop people on forums discussing topics.  

5 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Even in much smaller things there would be problems. Like if you think talking about 420 as legal medication is just a claptrap, we already have a problem because there's quite a much research that it really works and mainly the opposite argument is that "it's a illegal drug". With this kind of law that would be in the hands of the government how they want to see and under their decision how people will see it and how people will talk about it.

It is legal medication in most countries, not sure why that is even being debated anymore.

 

5 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Yes, this would solve the problem of stupid people shoving bleach into their kids rears, but at the same time stupid people have done that way before the internet. Just look at something like scientology or any other religious sect, they have done fine without the internet and at the same time as they have started to use the internet to spread their word there is a lot of sites and people opposing it.

 

The problem is not that stupid people exist, but that the internet is demonstrably the second largest revolution in human history and the effects of that are huge, we are not talking about a few dumb people, we are talking about otherwise reasonable people who now don;t go to see there doctor because the internet is flooded with very well written articles that leverage human survival instincts (fear) to steer them away from what was their once only source for medical advice. 

 

5 hours ago, Thaldor said:

At the same time, would we have any global services left after this kind of law? Just because there's as many truths as there's participants in many things especially politic, there could not be Facebook, maybe Facebook England, Facebook Scotland, Facebook France, Facebook New York, Facebook [X-country/government area]. No one could do that and it would most likely kill the global internet worser than some link tax and all because if (imaginary) WoombaLoomba area with it's own  independent government wanted to get independence from Goombaland something like Facebook would get fined first by the Goombaland because there would be posts about WoombaLoomba wanting to get independent and then by WoombaLoomba because they would censor their messages about wanting to get independent or even worse there would be posts denying their independence.

 

Well for one it isn't a law, it's recommendations from a committee to be considered in the scope of the issues we face.  I can't see how this would prevent intercontinental discussion on political issues.   Most of the recommendations are just clearing away the subterfuge used by lobby groups and making ads/campaigns obvious.   It's mostly about making sure people know the difference between a personal opinion on a forum and a paid ad campaign spreading falsehoods.

 

5 hours ago, Thaldor said:

So how about instead of turning global internet into a local area network, UK would put those moneys they would give to some educated people to make educated reports that those who pay them want them to give, to something like educating their people about "media literacy" (that is the single thing missing that causes so much trouble) and that not everything you read on the internet (or worse in the news) is true and to always be sceptic and make your own background check to build up your own opinion.

That is part of it:

Quote

 

“to finance a comprehensive educational framework (developed by charities and non-governmental organisations) and based online”. “Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths,” the committee writes. “The DCMS Department should co-ordinate with the Department for Education, in highlighting proposals to include digital literacy, as part of the Physical, Social, Health and Economic curriculum (PSHE).

This sounds pretty awesome to me,  The national curriculum of any country is probably the most transparent/attainable government policy/document there is.

 

5 hours ago, Arika S said:

so who gets to define whether or not something is "fake news"? Because if the UK government has shown anything in these last few years is that there are massive double standards when it comes to controversial topics

 

I have been a proponent of something like this for a long time now, having seen the effects of the internet first hand.  My goto response is to have it the same as a defamation case.  Where the burden of proof is on the accuser, I.E If I claim a website is promoting fake news, then it is on me to prove they knowingly are spreading dangerous/defamatory information.  If I can do that then that site should become part of a black list.  If I can only prove it's wrong (not intentional) then the site should be made to remove the offending content.   All sites should have to advise visitors of their financial contracts and partnerships.

[Zodiark1593]

Would there be any consequence to myself if I used a VPN to start a UK Facebook account, and start writing + distributing intentionally misleading or fake news?

 

Though I'd probably write something along the vein of "Using smartphone in the bathroom leads to increased Ecoli rates". 

 

[mr moose]

17 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Would there be any consequence to myself if I used a VPN to start a UK Facebook account, and start writing + distributing intentionally misleading or fake news?

 

Though I'd probably write something along the vein of "Using smartphone in the bathroom leads to increased Ecoli rates". 

 

If I read these recommendations right then no.  There would be no consequence to you as it would have to be first reported by someone then proven it was fake news only then appropriate action could be taken.  From what I read it would mean a take down notice issued to he platform (in this case facbook) then if they don't comply a fine to facebook.  It would not really effect your ability to promote your own ideals on your own website unless what you do on that website violates other laws.   You would not need a VPN unless you intend to break a law (defame someone or intentional cause harm).

 

 

[asus killer]

7 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Sieg heil Queen Elizabeth!

Those who control the mainstream media.

the problem with fake news started when the "mainstream media" stop being the only ones with the news. So logic dictates they must be the problem. It's kind of a reverse logic i guess.

[LAwLz]

I think this proposal includes some pretty good stuff. For example increased education regarding an individuals privacy rights online.

Information about who are behind paid-for political advertisements seems like a good step towards transparency too.

 

However, I have a very big issue with things which tries to "combat fake news", because whoever is in the position to decide what is and isn't fake news has such an incredibly large amount of power they become a massive threat to the entire democratic system, as well as peoples' freedom of opinions and expression.

The earth being round was once considered fake news. Now the earth being flat is considered fake news. It's easy to have 20/20 hindsight and say we are correct now, but the point is that we might be wrong about plenty of "fake news" today, which will in the future turn out to be true. However, if censorship and fines start appearing on merely talking about these "fake news" then we might never get to the truth to begin with.

 

If it had been illegal to say the earth was round back when that was widely believed then who knows what the world would look like today.

 

 

Also, it is worth noting that the UK political system is corrupt as fuck. Here is one example where politicians in the UK passed an extremely privacy intrusive bill, and they specifically wrote in the bill that it does not apply to them. Imagine being so corrupt that you publicly claim to be above the law.

Not to mention all the politicians and celebrities in the UK which are involved in pedophile cases, which all seem very mysterious.

Here are some examples:

Westminster pedophile dossier - 114 documents about child abuse have mysteriously vanished, several people who were investigating the claims have quit. Politicians have also gone after journalists writing about it.

Here is another pedophile scandal that was covered up by British politicians and other people in power. Over 30 people have now been found guilty, but it took 20 years before evidence stopped being suppressed and kept secret. 

Do we really want these people controlling what can and can't be said about them or other topics? Just look at how it is working out in China...

 

And this is a problem. People can pick and choose what is and isn't "fake news".

There aren't many news stories which are actually true these days, and the same could have been said before the Internet too. Only 16% of statements on CNN (which were investigated by Politifact) were found to be completely true. The rest had some level of inaccuracy (with 47% only being "half truths" or worse).

Where do we draw the line between "fake news" and not fake news? Should 84% of CNN's reports be deleted and them fined for spreading fake news? Should only the 47% which are "half truths" be deleted? Should only the "pants on fire" reports be deleted?

 

Articles are usually not "real" or "fake" because they contain a lot of statements, usually some of which are true, and some of which are false. A lot of times things are not fully confirmed to be true or false either, and how much evidence something needs in order to be classified as "real" or "fake" varies from person to person too.

Should news articles be deleted if some person in power deems that the evidence is not sufficient to definitively say something is true? If something is 90% confirmed, should that be allowed or deleted? At the end of the day, what is and isn't fake news often comes down to subjective, personal opinions, and banning those is in my opinion a very bad and dangerous thing.

 

 

Edit: Added a few things.

[IntMD]

16 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

The former was imprisoned for exposing various Muslim grooming gangs throughout, I believe London and the latter was banned from entering the United Kingdom on the grounds of “hate speech” from her Twitter page. 

 

They're going to leverage this protection as grounds to ban speech they don’t like, just like they’ve done before and then someone has to save them from their own damage. History repeats itself. 

As others have said, Tommy Robinson is a vile little weasel of a man. Please never listen to fake news again.

 

[Sauron]

20 hours ago, HarryNyquist said:

Remember in the other thread I said the EU copyright crap wasn't dead? This will be how they disguise it to ram it through.

this is just the UK though, right?

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

this is just the UK though, right?

Yes. Nothing to do with EU.

[mr moose]

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Articles are usually not "real" or "fake" because they contain a lot of statements, usually some of which are true, and some of which are false. A lot of times things are not fully confirmed to be true or false either, and how much evidence something needs in order to be classified as "real" or "fake" varies from person to person too.

Should news articles be deleted if some person in power deems that the evidence is not sufficient to definitively say something is true? If something is 90% confirmed, should that be allowed or deleted? At the end of the day, what is and isn't fake news often comes down to subjective, personal opinions, and banning those is in my opinion a very bad and dangerous thing.

 

 

 

This is something that needs to be reconciled yet I have no idea how.  Outside of absolute statements which can be argued and/or defended using the usual court system for a defamation case,  there are millions of very cleverly crafted articles in the internet that don't actually lie, but leave even the most intelligent reader with a false understanding of reality.  It is literally con-artistry of the 21st century.    How do we address Internet content that is demonstrably damaging but does not actually break any laws and even supported by some people?

 

My only answer is to send the article to 1000 randomly picked people and ask them to read it and answer some questions concerning the implication of facts, e.g what you believe after reading it etc. Try to garner if the language used in the article would mislead a reasonable person even though it technically does not. This is not grounds for a fine or criminal punishment, but I would certainly argue it would be grounds for redaction of the article if the net effect of the article infers a factual premise that is false even though it is semantically accurate. 

 

[DildorTheDecent]

On 7/30/2018 at 10:20 PM, mr moose said:

Or the number of kids who's parents shove bleach up their ass trying to cure autism?

kek. Please be fake.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, DildorTheDecent said:

kek. Please be fake.

I'm afraid not.  It's a wide spread problem, and it's not just autism, these people prey on the fears of parents to push all kinds of fake health products and many are very dangerous.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=bleach+enema&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

 

 

I also personally know a bloke who bought some to drink for his "ailments".  he's just an average joe with a profession.   It's an issue that goes beyond the ability to think critically because it even intelligent people can be conned.

 

 

 

[asus killer]

i'm pretty sure bleach up the ass cures autism and there are no fake news problem, more even, i don't think anyone should decide to remove news of bleach curing autism, no one should have that power and it's dangerous. And who decides if bleach cures autism or not? 

Everything is fine, this is just some EU trying to control our lives with the support of the mainstream media.

[LAwLz]

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

I'm afraid not.  It's a wide spread problem, and it's not just autism, these people prey on the fears of parents to push all kinds of fake health products and many are very dangerous.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=bleach+enema&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

 

 

I also personally know a bloke who bought some to drink for his "ailments".  he's just an average joe with a profession.   It's an issue that goes beyond the ability to think critically because it even intelligent people can be conned.

I am fairly sure things like that have been happening since way before the Internet too.

It's just that we hear about it more today.

 

You think bleach enemas are bad? Check out these radioactive suppository pills:

 

Gotta love how "within a few minutes, it enters the blood stream and traverses the entire body. Every tissue, every organ of the body is bombarded" is a selling point, but today we understand it is an extremely terrible thing which will kill you, slowly and painfully.

 

People were crazy for radium in the early 1900.

Radium toothpaste, radium "enriched" water for increased health, the list goes on. 

[mr moose]

44 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I am fairly sure things like that have been happening since way before the Internet too.

It's just that we hear about it more today.

That is exactly the issue.

 

 

44 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

You think bleach enemas are bad? Check out these radioactive suppository pills:

 

Gotta love how "within a few minutes, it enters the blood stream and traverses the entire body. Every tissue, every organ of the body is bombarded" is a selling point, but today we understand it is an extremely terrible thing which will kill you, slowly and painfully.

 

People were crazy for radium in the early 1900.

Radium toothpaste, radium "enriched" water for increased health, the list goes on. 

The key point is exactly that; "today we uinderstand".  I don't know how anyone can claim drinking bleach or shoving it up your arse is a good thing given the evidence we have that it isn't.  We are not talking about stuff that we don't understand like they didn't understand radiation in the 19th century, we are talking about stuff we do understand.  We have an evergrowing foundation of scientific evidence to base health advice on, if we are just going to ignore that, then you are probably right, and we shouldn't worry about dodgy health sites either.

[cj09beira]

On 7/31/2018 at 3:59 AM, mark_cameron said:

Tommy Robinson was jailed as he commited a criminal act filming defendents/jurors outside of an ongoing criminal trial.

 

Please don't claim Tommy Robinson is some sort of victim. He isn't. His jailing has been a long time coming.

 

Nothing to do with this topic.

 

Other than he committed contempt of court streaming film to facebook from outside a crown court. Thereby jeopardizing the trial.

he was sentenced without the right to his own lawyer by the same judge that was presiding the case he was talking about, he was also not the only press member there and all he said was public knowledge so i dont see the problem here unless people shouldn't have freedom of speech, in a matter of hours he was going to prison with a sentence that is way out or proportion to the crime committed looking at similar cases where the offense was done multiple times in a row the sentence was still smaller than what he got , how is that fair, and you should look into why he was accused of fraud and assault, because its a much more trivial matter than it seems

[LAwLz]

8 minutes ago, mr moose said:

That is exactly the issue.

 

 

The key point is exactly that; "today we uinderstand".  I don't know how anyone can claim drinking bleach or shoving it up your arse is a good thing given the evidence we have that it isn't.  We are not talking about stuff that we don't understand like they didn't understand radiation in the 19th century, we are talking about stuff we do understand.  We have an evergrowing foundation of scientific evidence to base health advice on, if we are just going to ignore that, then you are probably right, and we shouldn't worry about dodgy health sites either.

I didn't express myself clearly.

 

I think we hear about the crazy idiots more today than we did before. There have always been weirdos who want to use alternative medicine, long before the Internet.

I think that people who are crazy and don't trust doctors would not trust them regardless of what they read online. I mean, they already don't believe all the facts they read about how bleach is toxic, and I think censoring their views won't exactly make these people go away either. if anything they might become even more loud and strongly opinionated.

 

Censorship is never the solution to ignorance. Education is.

Education is always the solution, and censoring ideas is the opposite of education.

 

Also, like I said earlier it is easy to have 20/20 hindsight, but at the time we really didn't think radium was extremely harmful. For all we knew, it was safe and well understood.

You can't use future discoveries to claim people in the past were ignorant. If we discover that yes, vaccines did in fact play a role in the development and raise of autism (just to be clear, I don't believe it does, just using it as an example), do you think it would be fair for future people to call you ignorant? You just relied on the knowledge that was available at the time.

 

Chances are we are wrong about a ton of stuff today, even though we strongly believe them to be true and obvious.

[DildorTheDecent]

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

I'm afraid not.  It's a wide spread problem, and it's not just autism, these people prey on the fears of parents to push all kinds of fake health products and many are very dangerous.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=bleach+enema&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

 

 

I also personally know a bloke who bought some to drink for his "ailments".  he's just an average joe with a profession.   It's an issue that goes beyond the ability to think critically because it even intelligent people can be conned.

Those images are not pretty.

 

Doing it to children is just child abuse. Unbelievable.

[EPENEX]

"Someone said something I don't like so let's ban and fine it". Thanks, U.K., great thinking.

[mr moose]

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I didn't express myself clearly.

 

I think we hear about the crazy idiots more today than we did before. There have always been weirdos who want to use alternative medicine, long before the Internet.

I think that people who are crazy and don't trust doctors would not trust them regardless of what they read online. I mean, they already don't believe all the facts they read about how bleach is toxic, and I think censoring their views won't exactly make these people go away either. if anything they might become even more loud and strongly opinionated.

 

Except it is not that simple,  we don't just here about the crazy people more, the Internet has given the crazy people an equal platform to reach the masses as it does legitimate science and health professionals.

 

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Censorship is never the solution to ignorance. Education is.

Education is always the solution, and censoring ideas is the opposite of education.

No one is talking about censoring ideas or speech, just shutting up those who are factually and abbsolutely wrong
 and those whose promotions are demonstrably causing damage.

 

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

Also, like I said earlier it is easy to have 20/20 hindsight, but at the time we really didn't think radium was extremely harmful. For all we knew, it was safe and well understood.

You can't use future discoveries to claim people in the past were ignorant. If we discover that yes, vaccines did in fact play a role in the development and raise of autism (just to be clear, I don't believe it does, just using it as an example), do you think it would be fair for future people to call you ignorant? You just relied on the knowledge that was available at the time.

Again, you don;t need hindsight to know shoving bleach up your arse is dangerous, you don;t need hindsight to know radiation is dangerous.  We are not talking about shutting down new idea or stuff that is not yet proven to be dangerous.  We are talking about shutting down what is absolute wrong and what is proven to be dangerous.   Unless you genuinely think they are going to discover they were wrong about radiation and that at some point in the future shoving bleach up your arse turns out to be healthy, then there is no argument that can satisfy allowing such content to be sold.

 

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Chances are we are wrong about a ton of stuff today, even though we strongly believe them to be true and obvious.

So your fine with allowing the promotion of dangerous practices on the grounds that one day we might discover we where wrong?