The Obama Administration and many Democratic leaders have made “fake news” a rallying cry for more government and private regulation of the Internet — as well as a rationale for the devastating loss of Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. Below is a column exploring the dangers of this new justification for speech regulation, which are already becoming evident in various countries around the world. I recently discussed the issue as part of an interesting segment with Ted Koppel.
The recent arrest of an armed North Carolina man in Washington pizzeria has led many to join the call for the curtailment of “fake news” like the story that Comet Ping Pong was a front of Clinton and her campaign chief, John Podesta, of a child sex ring. It is a ridiculous claim but it was enough to send Edgar Maddison to the site with an assault weapon. For civil libertarians, such incidents create an all-too-familiar hue and cry. Faced with a violent, unhinged reaction to a posting, the first response of many is to question the value of free speech and the First Amendment. Around the world, many have called for action to combat “fake news.” It is the latest siren’s call to get citizens to give up a defining right to government’s eager to control the media.
In her first public appearance since losing the election, Hillary Clinton called for actions against the “epidemic” of fake news and called it a danger to democracy. She called for government legislation and a coalition of private and public regulation. In a recent meeting between Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the two world leaders also struck out against fake news and its dangers. Obama warned that “[b]ecause in an age where there’s so much active misinformation and its packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television. If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect.”
Under classic free speech analysis, the answer is simple: you protect it all. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his dissent to the 1919 case Abrams v. United States, “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” In other words, the solution to bad speech is more speech.
Of course, certain speech can result in arrest where it is the basis for a conspiracy or part of a fraudulent enterprise or encouraging for imminent violent acts. It can also result in civil liability such as actions for defamation or product disparagement. However, advocates of censorship are speaking of something far more extreme. They want to see a government crackdown on those who merely utter false statements or “propaganda.” Indeed, some are speaking of a reconsideration of the very value or permitted scope of free speech. That is the position taken by Harvard Professor Noah Feldman who questioned whether “fake” speech is protected speech. Feldman views “fake news” as a type of market failure in the market of ideas – the type of problem that calls for regulation not more speech. Feldman reflects a certain crisis of faith in free speech among liberals who are increasingly treating free speech as the problem rather than the solution for a free society. From hate speech to “microaggressions” to “fake news,” liberals are calling for the government to censor speech.
Various governments are ramping up monitoring efforts and discussing both voluntary and involuntary censorship through Internet and social media companies. In France and other countries, companies are already being prosecuted for posting being hateful. This week, a congressional committee moved to add $160 million to the National Defense Authorization Act to combat “disinformation” on news sites. Many want to see government actively ban sites and internet providers are being warned that they have to censor false stories or face government regulation from countries like Germany. In order words, be a “Little Brother” or face “Big Brother.”
The problem is that someone has to decide what is false or what is inspired for foreign agencies to cause mischief. For example, Hillary Clinton denounced Wikileaks as false but never cited as single false email to prove her claim. Likewise, acting DNC head Donna Brazile repeatedly made the same allegations when emails showed that she unethically leaked questions to be asked at a CNN townhall to the Clinton campaign. Brazile told the media that she could prove that emails were tampered with but never supplied the evidence. Wikileaks infuriated the establishment in Washington. The response has been blind rage from people in Washington who have thrived on controlling information and shaping the news.
It is an easy rationale for government regulation that has not been lost on countries long at odds with free speech. For example, this week Egyptian authorities arrests an Al-Jazeera journalist for incitement and fabricating news. Egyptian Mahmoud Hussein, 51, was the subject of a raid on his home and was then detained “pending an investigation into accusations that he incited against the state and broadcast fake news and documentaries”. The arrest illustrates the dangerous course being suggested by the Obama Administration and leader Democratic leaders in the political spasm following the election loss to Donald Trump.
“Fake news” is simply the latest excuse for governments to convince citizens to invite their own censorship. The dangers could not be more evident that the recent article by the Washington Post citing a study by a dubious group called PropOrNot listing various sites spreading false stories. The organization produced a effective black list that was portrayed as an objective list of peddlers of false stories or “Russian propangda.” It included some of the most popular political sites from the left and right Truthout, Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and the Ron Paul Institute. It even includes one of the most read sites on the Internet, the Drudge Report. Notably, it also included WikiLeaks, which has been credited with exposing political corruption and unlawful surveillance programs. Ironically, PropOrNot has itself been criticized for falsely claimed associations with various offices and sites.
The ProporNot controversy shows how easy it is to create a blacklist and how eager many will be to silence those sites deemed “fronts” or “false.” The move to regulate speech on the Internet is little more than a digital version of mob justice. These advocates, however, are right in part. Fake news does have a real danger but it is not the erosion of democracy. Citizens can protect themselves, particularly with a free and unregulated Internet. The real danger of fake news is the reaction to it. The real danger is censorship.
Joe,
Actually, that is a good example. This has been discussed and explained. It was more speech that helped people willing to understand, understand the situation.
For you and other Democrats, propaganda seems to be something only Republicans engage in. But as you can see from the bill to suppress free speech sponsors and the president who signed it, it is a bi-partisan bill. Obama and Clinton have both engaged in plenty of lies and misinformation as did Bush and Cheney before them as will Trump. You seem to misunderstand this problem by attributing the problem only to a Republican administration.
It is the powerful, inside and outside of the govt. who want ordinary citizens to be misinformed, uninformed and on narrative. In order for citizens to counteract the desire of the powerful to control us, we need to discard partisanship and just start looking at what is. I have to say that I don’t see many Democrats willing to simply take a look at reality and name it. I wish that you would join together with all people who seek real information, whether it flatters one’s “leadership” or not.
We need understanding, not obfuscation.
The RNC has explained that the “new King” they were referring to in their message yesterday was indeed, Jesus, and not Donald Trump. 🙂
Joe,
I agree, that was funny! And I also agree Trump is bad news and I’m not expecting better from him than Obama or Clinton.
Social media erupts over GOP Christmas message welcoming arrival of “new King” http://hill.cm/C8zTdr5 Says it all……
Hillary seems to have forgotten or chosen to ignore all of the falsehoods she and her campaign themselves manufactured during her run. The extent to which she wanted to censor and censure is legitimately shocking to me, and to hear her or the DNC speak about it this way is the very definition of chutzpah, and I just can’t take her seriously.
Though I’ll grant that journalism has suffered greatly over the past decade in tandem with the rise of social media, the fact remains that the mainstream media has always been suspect, this is not a new phenomenon. There are, however, a generation or two encountering this dilemma for the first time, and they have the means to broadcast their (likely ephemeral) integrative process in a way that former generations did not. Combined with a great deal of free time on their hands (another luxury not bestowed upon previous generations), it can blow even legitimate issues way, way out of proportion. People grow up in public these days; the real slippery slope to me is in not acknowledging that this constitutes the majority of the noise, it isn’t confined to college campuses, pubs, or cafés anymore. It doesn’t make the viewpoints any less transitory.
For those of us that have already reached the far shore in the journey to adulthood, what Hillary describes is nothing short of tyranny. I have never seen such sore losers, or such blatant malfeasance, in the entirety of my time on this earth.
The Ron Paul Institute and Zero Hedge are fake news? Both of those sources primarily concern themselves with the dangers of fiat currency/Keynesian economics and US military interventionism. I don’t recall any articles about Podesta or “pizza gate”. Maybe Zero Hedge referred to someone else’s article. I wasn’t looking for that and therefore didn’t notice it.
Since Obama signed the Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill into law I’m unsure how this can be undone. It seems to have been militarized as it falls under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It seems to have bipartisan support. It’s a witch hunt and modern day McCarthyism. If a politician doesn’t like something then it’s coming from Russia or China…or a foreign influence.
Calling this Orwellian seems like an understatement.
“Do you now or have you ever worked for the Communist Party…” They don’t even need to ask. One day Zero Hedge and The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is gone. We can thank both parties for this.
Someone tell me I’m wrong, please!
Both of those sources primarily concern themselves with the dangers of fiat currency/Keynesian economics and US military interventionism. I
Monetary cranks who fancy that conflict in the world is a consequence of not following the counsel of savvy guys like Ron Paul. Surely a fine contribution to public wisdom.
Dismissing Ron Paul as a crank completely ignores his natural rights worldview.
I wouldn’t bother reading the utterances of Ron Paul if studying ‘natural rights’ were my object. Ron Paul is notable as a purveyor of opinion and someone who can influence the course of public discourse. He’s notable as a promoter of goldbuggery and largely fantastical conceptions of international relations. Yes, I’m inclined to dismiss him.
DSS,
Don’t let us stop you! We just don’t want to be stopped from reading things you don’t approve of!
That’s right, and I still want to be insulted by DSS,s self-serving and inside-the-beltway-suspension-of-reality-serving government stats. You know, “if it walks on four legs and barks, it must be a catfish.” “Fund that puppy! (or fish… or whatever…)”
Just make up the stats if it helps you feel better. But don’t bother the adults with them.
The Democratic side of the FCC has been trying to shut down Drudge and Breitbart for some time. The problem is they only have 2 votes. Trump will have the opportunity to replace Wheeler (has to be a Democrat) and name a chairman,
I agree with Professor Turley that censorship (even the threat of censorship) is a big problem if it is triggered by fake news. But a much bigger danger is nuclear war (even the threat of nuclear war) being set off by fake news. It just happened. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/world/asia/pakistan-israel-khawaja-asif-fake-news-nuclear.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Objectively, what happened is the NYT published an article designed to attract readers and clickers to its site. Then, by conflating various and completely unrelated activities, the NYT completed their biased and agenda-driven report. That’s not real news. What NYT should have addressed is how Mr. Asif followed the left’s method of going silent after he was caught tweeting bird s#!t. Here’s the news that’s fit to print: Mr. Asif learned well from Obama, Brazile, Podesta, all Clintons, and others of their ilk to say and/or post absolute garbage to distract media sources from actually practicing journalism. What’s most amazing about the left’s attack on “fake news,” is it’s actually their response to Donald Trump’s exaggerated use of their techniques to control the media.
That sounds too convenient that that happened while the fake news meme is going strong.
We are supposed to think: ‘oh, dear! fake news nearly started a nuclear war! We had better rein in fake news to prevent a catastrophe!’
Hmmm. It sounds like the CIA was involved or something…
http://www.recode.net/2016/12/12/13919952/net-neutrality-fcc-rosenworcel-trump-senate“Now with Rosenworcel out and Chairman Wheeler expected to leave the agency in January, the stage is set for a 2-1 Republican majority at the FCC next year. And President-elect Trump, an opponent of network neutrality, is geared to pick new leadership to reverse the rules.
Without network neutrality, internet providers will be able to create a two-way toll, charging subscribers to access the internet (which it already does) as well as charging websites for prioritized access to reach their users.
That means that smaller, new online businesses that can’t afford to pay to reach users at faster speeds will be relegated to the slow lane, making it difficult to compete with already established sites — especially if websites that are already extremely profitable, like Facebook, get to set the price.”
Well said. Also note, sites that do not conform to the Establishment point of view can also be censored by the very same mechanism implemented by either government OR big business with deep enough pockets to influence web provider policy.
As an article in Zero Hedge points out, “Fake” news was not even being discussed before around late Oct. There was no crisis, no hype, no worries! Then when it looked like evidence of wrongdoing was swaying hearts and minds against Clinton, suddenly, “fake’ news was a problem of epic proportion! I was getting ready to pump gas and had to turn off radio. I briefly heard Obama saying propaganda was a real problem. I was mind blown! What is he doing talking about propaganda or even admitting it existed? Well, of course, the answer became clear when i was able to hear the rest of the story.
Propaganda was not something the govt. engaged in against our citizens. No propaganda was sites like wikileaks and other places where one heard CRITICISM of and information about the wrongdoing of USGinc!
My world came back together 🙂 Oh, this is why Obama was talking about the dangers of propaganda. Propaganda is information citizens aren’t supposed to know about the govt.! Yes, Obama would think that was bad!
USGinc. allows itself the right to make crap up all the time. It has fake bloggers making comments on SMS. One person controls as many as 10 entities (probably more by now as this info is older) who make fake back stories and use comments and bullying of non-conformists to instill “conformity and obedience” in the population. The govt. has been shown to employ “journalists” and to write their stories for them. Information is repressed on an unprecedented scale. Even now, Obama is fighting tooth and nail to keep pictures of USGinc.s torture victims withheld from publication because they are so awful. Yet torture is a war crime and these victims deserve to have the truth known. Whistleblowers are harassed and jailed or are fleeing for their lives. Whole areas of govt. action are simply off limits to reporters even when a few reporters show actual interest in a story that does not support the inherent trustworthiness of govts and corporations around the world. We no very little about Gitmo, various wars, real economic conditions, etc. These things are opaque to us and it is very difficult to find real information regarding them.
I don’t want known liars and purveyors of propaganda telling me what I have a right to know! This govt. and its corporate partners want control over the people. Instead of giving them the power to crush dissent we should engage in it. Instead of allowing them to make us stupid and uniformed, we should become even more informed.
If the govt. want to combat propaganda they can stop engaging in it. People can learn about logically ways of evaluating evidence-including “evidence” the powerful present to us as “facts”. There’s your answer and the fact that the govt. wishes to suppress information tells you what they really want- total control of the flow of information. No, you may not have this!
A good rant, but the truth of the matter is that it will be very hard if not impossible to stop government from slowly putting the screws on the internet which looks ominously near the end of it’s extraordinary Wild West like expansion of free speech on public affairs.
Howard Zinn used to say in this regard, The only people with free speech [related to publlic affairs] are those with a printing press, and that illustrated the truth that an important component of such “free speech” is the ability for one’s voice to be heard by many. For almost two decades, the internet made a virtually revolutionary change to that paradigm by providing a free market place for information and ideas. Not only was it suddenly easy to broadcast such information, but also a true forum of public exchange was possible through the early comment sections where anonymity was the default and trolls were few and far between. People suddenly had a place to “compare notes” and one of the first things to become evident to many, was just how much pure propaganda the main stream media put out. Weapons of mass deception was one of the first concrete examples. The extent and variety of of the lies and disinformation from the MSM was breathtaking and people took some time to simply take it all in.
This Wild West of ideas and exchange started to shift quite a while before Hillary’s team opted for their brazen “look over there” gambit with the Russian Hacking scam and then petulantly started to call for another round of Internet censorship when people and sites simply laughed at them. The writing was on the wall when Wikileaks first started really digging in to the Obama administration and it’s continuation and enlargement of the darker aspects of the Bush administration. Snowden sealed the deal. By 2015, had it not been for large corporations such as Google and Wikipedia who’s interests aligned momentarily with those of the public, a major battle for “net neutrality” would have been lost, http://www.freepress.net/blog/2015/01/23/hearings-highlight-congressional-efforts-undermine-net-neutrality. While the public outcry was enormous and had a significant effect on deterring Congress’ efforts to legislate “block, throttle and paid prioritization [of sites]” by internet providers, it would not have won the day without the support of these corporate entities.
And that close call underscored an important and alarming truth in this battle for freedom of speech through net neutrality. Namely, that while the public can still have a major impact on the Congress, the effort to do so has become disproportionate to the results. Major concerns involving the need for public support have risen up across the blogosphere to such an extent that one’s participation is spread remarkably thin. One simply can not participate, never mind afford to donate, in and to every worthy cause and fight.
Drip, drip, drip. The anonymity of the net has already been deeply compromised by use of for profit comment software such as Discuss, that use one’s comments for information gathering, analysis, and resale (one can with varying degrees of difficulty look up their “terms of use” to see exactly what I mean). Sites like this one, or Naked Capitalism, are becoming rare indeed, where the comment software is still controlled entirely by the site’s owners and where concerns for anonymity are still more important than the profit potential or the opportunity to be “in good” with intrusive government agencies.
Not only the days of Net neutrality numbered, but so are those of the whole phenomenon of digital forums wherein freedom of speech can be applied on a relatively large scale.
The digital main stream media, such as The Guardian or Huffington Post, have comment policies that are an excellent bell weather of this contraction through editorial restriction. Not only are comments now heavily edited to cleave to editorial point of view, but in The Guardian, an ever increasing number of articles no longer even have a comment section and of course, those are almost invariably articles trying to endorse or pimp a particularly odious neoliberal point of view that would be torn apart were comments allowed. Recent examples include a barrage of articles claiming that Brexit was not a popular idea and would never pass. Another was that Hillary’s coronation was as inevitable as that of any historical monarchy as expressed in the notion of “divine right.”
Hillary’s plight would be much like that of Sarah Palin, a historical foot note of the absurd, were it not that the interests of major corporate and finance institutions were deeply upset – not that Trump won – but rather that they lost control of the process. It is hard to overstate just how important this control has become to them and just how extreme the motivation to protect it.
Discuss-> DisqusBB,
That was a nice rant yourself!!!! 🙂
I think your last sentence succinctly outlines the problem. It’s a very well thought out explanation. Trump isn’t going to do something that upsets the oligarchy. He is an oligarch and they are mostly all good golfing buddies. But you’re correct– the oligarchs have lost control over many of the people to some real extent. I was surprised to hear libertarian sites make a distinction between capitalism and crony capitalism. I did not hear that very often before. Wikileaks has exposed a lot for people willing to look into it.
I think we need to make a new net for ourselves on behalf of the people. (After all, if Al Gore can do it, so can we!) I don’t know if this will solve the problem because the govt. will crack down on this project, fast and hard. But I wonder what would happen if we took it up as a serious project.
Yes, this is an extreme response. That does show how frightened they are. This govt. strikes me as willing to do anything to people who aren’t “obedient and compliant”. (Thanks to a Snowden leak, we know this is exactly their own wording of what they are trying to engineer in th public.) Scary times.
Thanks for a very thoughtful response, Jill. Agree with all your points. Incidentally, I meant “a good rant” just as you took it and as you point out responded with my own rant.
Reblogged this on The Grey Enigma.
Oops. I just called my neighbor who told the Hillary in high school story about the dog affair and he now admits that it was false and that he just wanted to defame her. So I apologize for repeating the story. It was not news fit to print. It would not make it into the New York Times. Sorry Hillary and sorry to Long Dong Silver the labrador. He was defamed more than Hillary.
Rather than suppressing speech, we need to admit that there is no way to know what is truth and what is not. We are all using our judgement and human judgement is quite variable.
“we need to admit that there is no way to know what is truth and what is not.”
B.S. The truth is always knowable; it’s just not always acceptable. Knowing the truth requires one to suspend judgment until the original source is found. Even then, the truth might be confirming a bias towards a worldview that is not compatible with equality and natural rights.
So when it comes to knowing the truth, worldview matters…a lot!
The biggest “fake news” in the past decade was the Hillary is a lock to win perpetrated by the MSM.
So called “fake news” is simply non MSM news. We should all thank Al Gore for inventing the internet and breaking the grip of the MSM.
“All the news that’s fit to print.” Who put that sentence out?
Voice of America.
Radio Free Europe.
Radio Moscow.
Days of old when Knights were bold and Cuba was just invented.
One way to get away with defamation today is to say on a blog that I just saw on another blog a story from a fellow high school student of Hillary Clinton that she had an affair with a female dog back in her high school days. I have not identified the blog or person who made the comment on the blog nor the person from Hillary’s high school nor the dog. We have to get to the dog to get to the truth.
We know that North Korea has a midget running the territory. We know that he is crazy. What we do not know is whether he has launched a missile to strike South Korea or just to splash in the water off shore. The news can report it both ways. CBS kind of news, not blog yak.
What we all need to do is to be suspect of all the noise we hear, whether it is “news” thought to be fit to print by the New York Times or blather from Dan Rather when he is on the beach yakking with Trump or news reported on this blog.
As for the story that Hillary had sex with a female dog when in high school . I do not believe it for one minute. And that is because my friend went to high school with Hillary and he says it was definitely a male dog named Long Dong Silver. And that is all the news from Lake Wo Be Gone.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelbycarpenter/2016/11/21/trump-appoints-anti-net-neutrality-fcc-transition/#1314071133e1 The future of net neutrality looks kind of shaky in a Trump administration.
This would be true to form. You may have missed that we only narrowly escaped a fatal shot to net neutrality under Obama’s regime. He was no great friend of net neutrality, always a great friend of corporate interests.
I realize you are aware of Obama’s shortcomings and are more of a Trump critic than an Obama apologist, but I thought I would take advantage of your bringing up the subject to make the point anyway.
A slippery slope for sure….
But I was amazed that courts ruled your Facebook page can be used as evidence! Talk about ‘fake news’! So any story or fabrication made on the internet can be used as truthful evidence against a person?!?!
The internet, where truth can be looking you in the eye, or so far into fantasy land as to be unbelievable…what irony!