When the Fake News craze started with unproven claims that fake news on Facebook had swayed the US presidential election, the blogster was worried it would be exploited as a means to discredit unwanted opinions and maybe even for censorship.
Tweeting about a German article that cited calls by politicians for improved measures against fake news, the blogster added "censorship", and promptly lost several Twitter followers.
So, it* proudly brings you these headlines:
Fake News: Coalition wants to force faster deletion by Facebook and Internet Hate Speech: Justice Minister threatens Facebook with fines.
While one article highlights fake news in the headline, the other emphasizes hate speech, but both report along the same lines.
The German government plans to add a new law to the statute after the Christmas break, so that it will be in force before the 2017 federal elections.
Unlike the US, Germany already has laws against hate speech, and these laws are being used. Just "not fast enough", complains the justice minister. Adding an additional enforcement process to deal with hate speech is not drawing much criticism.
What does draw ire is the inclusion of "fake news".
Specifically including "fake news" in the new law that calls for a 365 24/7 staffed complaints organization makes the project a vehicle for censorship - period.
Remember, this is a German law.
Which means that flagging something as potentially fake news, as Facebook is currently trialing in the US, won't fly in this detail obsessed country.
[Update 12/17/2016] Today, The Guardian runs a short article on the topic, mentioning out "fake news" only in one sentence. Like the German reports, it mentions "Facebook also could be compelled to distribute corrections that reach the same number of people as the original post, Oppermann suggested, something traditional media companies in Germany are already required to do."
This indicates that the German government will try to give Facebook and other sites the legal status of a "media organization", as opposed to the generic "telecommunications company" status. A telco is never liable for what people say over the phone, media orgs fall under the press laws.
German law makers proposed to distribute corrections to every user who viewed a hate speech post or fake news instance, saying that Facebook collects the data that make this possible.
The blogster doubts such targeted notification will be included in the law because it would demonstrate how far reaching data collection is and raise awareness of surveillance. Governments generally don't like citizens to think much about surveillance - but maybe the disgust of German politicians for Facebook will overcome this. Which would be a great, if unintended benefit.
Sadly, The Guardian mentions only the right wing AfD as a critic of the plan. Many associations and companies far removed from right wing politics are very critical of the government.
Defining what constitutes "fake news" will definitely haunt German law makers because use of the term in the German press and by politicians is worrying: it is primarily used for ambiguous news, to describe reports that don't correct earlier reporting fast enough when new facts emerge, or "propaganda".
[Update 12/18/2016] In a new article today, Frankfurter Allgemeine also switches headlines and goes with Fake News instead of its earlier focus on hate speech.
[Update 12/18/2016] Martin Schulz, the president of the EU Parliament, chimes in with a call for an EU wide law against 'Fake News'. "It shouldn't be much of a technical challenge to mark or delete 'Fake News'", says Mr. Schulz.
[Update 12/20/2016] Today, German digital rights and policies platform netzpolitik.org published an analysis of the proposals from various politicians of the governing Berlin coalition, coming to the same conclusions the blogster condensed into its* post above. The article is in German.
[Update 12/24/2016] Yesterday, German media reported that the government is preparing to set up a "Center for Defense against Disinformation" under control of the government's press office in Berlin. The German journalist union DJV came out strongly against the plan: No censorship agency!
According to the planning paper by the Interior Ministry, ethnic Turks and Russians are the groups most susceptible to "Fake News".
[Update 12/26/2016] Existing German laws work: Renate Kuenast, a prominent politician of the German Green party had Facebook delete a post that contained a made-up quote by her about the alleged murderer of a student in the southern city of Freiburg, and the DA investigates the FB page that published the post. The politician, however, is unhappy that it took Facebook "almost three days" to remove the post.
[Update 4/9/2017] Told you so.
The German government recently drafted new hate speech legislation mandating deletion of hate speech and with steep penalties for platforms that fail to "pull their weight". German all things digital site netzpolitik has a nice English version of the proposals and their dangers.
The bill, as bad as it was, relied on platform operators to delete entries in a civil law context.
But calls for a government agency have now surfaced. For instance, a member of parliament of the governing Christian Democrats wants a state agency to decide on content.
We used to call that censorship.
* Because the blogster likes to be gender neutral, just because.
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