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posted by FatPhil on Monday February 06 2017, @09:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-there-an-all-fake-news-sites-are-liars-paradox dept.

Over the last few months, we've talked about the weird obsession some people upset by the results of the election have had with the concept of "fake news." We warned that focusing on "fake news" as a problem was not just silly and pointless, but that it would quickly morph into calls for censorship. And, even worse, that censorship power would be in the hands of whoever got to define what "fake news" was.

Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170201/23481336610/bad-idea-worst-idea-having-ftc-regulate-fake-news.shtml


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  • (Score: 2) by tizan on Tuesday February 07 2017, @01:28AM

    by tizan (3245) on Tuesday February 07 2017, @01:28AM (#463831)

    there is already law against it i believe...just like "shouting fire" is not free speech if it is intented to do harm in a theater for example.
    So writing and spreading with full knowledge fake news can and will cause harm to somebody..so they should be dealt under the law appropriately. The question is proving that somebody knew the news is false and spread it anyways as reality and not sarcasm or a joke is why judges and lawyers are there....

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @02:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @02:35PM (#464063)

    there is already law against it i believe...just like "shouting fire" is not free speech if it is intented to do harm in a theater for example.

    The popular "shouting fire in a crowded theater" quote is actually from a court case where the US government argued that it was ok to censor people who didn't agree with the government actions in the Vietnam war.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater [wikipedia.org]

    That is, every time you use that quote in support of censoring anyone (whether legitimate or not), you are supporting abolishing free speech.