Germany threatens Facebook with €500,000 fine per fake news post

Germany’s had it up to here with Facebook being left to work out the fake news problem on its own.

The time for talking is over, Thomas Oppermann told Der Spiegel last week. Oppermann, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary chairman said it is time to move on to new laws and fat fines when social media platforms don’t remove offending messages after 24 hours:



According to the German news site Deutsche Welle, lawmakers in Berlin are mulling a policy that would enable victims of fake news and hate messages to contact the German headquarters of Facebook or of other social media platforms – don’t have one? Time to get one! – to prove that they’d been targeted and to ask for action, he said.

Otherwise, social media platforms could be looking at stiff penalties, Oppermann said:



The plan is to fast-track the new rules: DW reports that the ruling coalition wants to get a law in place before next year’s elections, and there are plans to start debate immediately after the Christmas break.

However, Germany’s federal association of newspaper publishers, the BDZV, does not love the country’s media being lumped in with social networks. It’s come out against expanding press laws to include social media sites, saying that they’re not media. Rather, they’re more along the lines of telecoms, a BDZV spokeswoman told DW, echoing Facebook’s own rationalization that it’s simply a neutral platform to present news to users, not an actual cog in the news-making machinery itself:



Germany’s tough talk came just one day after Facebook announced new tools to fight hoaxes and fake news. The new tools include easier reporting and the ability to flag stories as “disputed”.

It’s pulling Poynter into the mix: Facebook says it’s started to work with third-party fact-checking organizations that have signed on to a code of principles developed by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an alliance of fact-checkers hosted by Poynter.

Unsurprisingly in these polemic days, criticism of Poynter immediately sprouted after Facebook named it as a player in its new fake-news move.

Time to speed up development of a “more formal vetting mechanism”, said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the IFCN, following Facebook’s announcement:



If the fact-checkers identify a story as fake, Facebook will flag it as disputed and will link to an article explaining the rationale. Disputed stories may also appear lower in News Feed.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s careers page now has a new listing: it’s looking for somebody to be its head of news.

Who in their right mind would want that job, given all the stakeholders they’d have to answer to at Facebook?

Dan Gillmor, Professor of Practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, said that this is probably “the most important journalism job in the world” and that it’s bound to attract “a lot of excellent people”.



No doubt. Here’s to wishing the eventual hire all the luck in the world as Facebook grapples with post-election trauma in the US.

Luck, and hopefully a decent grasp of German.

Is Facebook considered a news outlet? Who is going there to keep up with world events?

A majority of U.S. adults – 62% – get news on social media, and 18% do so often, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center

And 88% of Americans say that fake news has cause either a great amount (64%) or some degree of (24%) confusion about basic facts.

Personally, I'd love to see fake news banned and fined heavily.

Free press comes with responsibilities. Trash like The National Enquirer, Breitbart, InfoWars, NaturalNews... are not responsible with their freedoms. That goes even further with "satire" sites.

Social media has only proven to me that there are very few critical thinkers out there. They were always there, but the internet has given their idiocy a voice.

Indeed, we should limit the right to publish to Pravda and Isvestia responsible mainstream news organizations, who are definitely trustworthy and never engage in blatant manipulation of the facts.

Nah, I wouldn't go that far. Nor do I know how this can be fixed. "Manipulation of the facts" is a different beast than "Making bullshit up out of whole cloth". I'd just like to see some integrity/responsibility of the "press". On all sides.

The main problem is when confronted with proof that X is bullshit, the common response is to say "Well, that's not what site Y says. And your information is clearly biased. You should read Site Y and Wake Up."

Sure. Believe the bullshit conspiracy theories and not the actual, factual evidence.

Who's deciding what's a "bullshit conspiracy theory" and what's "actual factual evidence"? It's really easy to wave InfoWars around and pretend it's really all about that, while in reality the intent is (once again) for the Left to be able to set the terms of what it's opponents are and are not allowed to bring into public debate. Pro forma declarations that it's for "all sides" aren't enough; as college campuses around the country demonstrate that simply doesn't end up being the case.

Furthermore, the "proof" (hint - it's almost never actually "proof"; it's evidence of varying strength while dismissing the other side as a "bullshit conspiracy" regardless of the actual strength of their evidence.)

And on top of that you want to see it "banned and fined heavily". Yeah. The government should definitely be policing what constitutes "responsible" use of "freedom of the press".

Sorry, but no - part of the price of a free society is that you don't get to declare "bullshit" off-limits to your fellow citizens.

Bullshit Conspiracy Theories: Flat Earth. Moon Landing Hoaxes. Vaccine Caused Autism. GMOs are dangerous. 9/11 was an inside job. Sandy Hook was a "False Flag Operation". Global Warming is a Chinese Hoax. Global Warming isn't real. The Government is behind Chemtrails. Evolution is only a "theory". Homosexuality is "Only behavior and not genetic predisposition". Hillary Clinton is running a Sex Slave Operation out of a Pizza Restaurant.

Y'know. ACTUAL bullshit conspiracy theories with ACTUAL invalidating proof. Believing any of these should be grounds for voter disqualification.

No, sorry. That inevitably leads to people coming up with reasons why Positions I Don't Like are Really Just Like Those. "Global Warming" is a perfect example; it isn't just "it's a Chinese Hoax" that gets lumped in there, it's "there's an awful lot of variables here, and you people seem to be doing a lot of picking and choosing, and are generally behaving like people with something to hide, so I'm not convinced" and all of a sudden you're right in there with "China made the whole thing up." Sorry, you don't get to pick out which of your favorite objectionable hogwash theories get banned and censored. We keep people like you angry and on the internet rather than in seats of power for a reason.

We shouldn't be disqualifying voters for believing those any more than for failing a "literacy test".

It's amusing seeing the blatant authoritarian hypocrisy appear though. We can't possibly **** on the Left hard enough at this point, and this sort of refusal to admit we live in a Republic is a perfect reason why.

Y'know. ACTUAL bullshit conspiracy theories with ACTUAL invalidating proof. Believing any of these should be grounds for voter disqualification.

This isn't new. I've always believed that morons shouldn't be allowed to vote.

**** your daughter

That could explain Donald Trump's success. When he said, "Grab 'em by the pussy," all of gen x saw him as the Second Coming of Bill Clinton.