Summary: The Pitfalls Of Censoring Fake News

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The spreading of misleading information is a concept so old that it can be dated back to the very dawn of man. For many years false narratives and stories have been spun to achieve a variety of goals, be it political or personal, however, the spreading of fake news has seen drastic changes within the past few decades. In today’s world of buzzwords and short headlines, fake news has been able to embed itself within our free marketplace of ideas, being perpetuated into echo chambers for even more people to see and spread. We as consumers have been told that fake news is not just limited to satirical news pieces anymore, but that it also exists prevalently within the mainstream news cycle as well. This narrative is spouted by members of high authoritative …show more content…

Facebook believes that their users do, allowing them to flag stories and articles that they deem as misleading, whereas entire countries like Germany or Belgium have wholeheartedly taken the responsibility onto themselves. In “The Pitfalls of Censoring Fake News,” author Aleksandra Eriksson details how several countries have gone about fighting fake news at its very source. In the article, Eriksson details Germany’s new legislation that “fines internet platforms up to €50 million if they fail to promptly remove slander or racist content…” (Qtd in Eriksson) Germany’s new law focuses more on punishing websites that did not remove fake news, seemingly challenging Facebook’s worries of being the “arbiter of truth.” However, Eriksson goes on to discuss how Germany’s actions could easily censor not just fake news, but also free speech, stating that “Only in very specific situations are they obliged to limit free speech” (Qtd in Eriksson). We see here our second example of a political figurehead attempting to censor fake news, and by extension raising the debate of free speech, both in Germany’s legislation and in Trump’s

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