Really Bad Ideas: French President Macron Wants To Ban 'Fake News' During The Election
Found on Techdirt on Saturday, 06 January 2018
He wanted to mandate encryption backdoors and demand internet censorship of "radicals" online who post "inflammatory content." And now he's expanding that position and saying he wants to ban "fake news" during election season.
A big part of the problem, obviously, is that "fake news" means different things to different people, and whoever has the power to order such content taken down will have plenty of opportunities to abuse that power -- such as to take down news that is merely unflattering to those in power.
Or maybe it could be used for good to shut up politicians. Many of them have no idea what they are talking about, and that is even worse than fake news.