Drudge, Facebook, NYT readers could face libel suits for sharing 'fake news'-New Proposal To FEC

Ahh the left and their freedom loving ways.

Former Federal Election Commission chair is urging substantial federal regulation to eliminate (undefined) "disinformation" and encouraging punishment for sharing FAKE news on sites like Face Book.

Political content on the internet, paid or not, should face substantial federal regulation to eliminate undefined "disinformation," and users of platforms and news feeds, from Facebook, to Twitter, to the Drudge Report and even New York Times, could be punished for sharing "fake news" from those sites, the former Democratic chair of the FEC is urging.

www.washingtonexaminer.com...


The broad proposal adds libel suits to plans the Dems are already pushing for on the FEC and ex chair Ann Ravel believes there is support. Ravel said she would include fake news and anyone who repeat it should face libel suits.

In a broad proposal that adds threatening libel suits to regulatory plans already pushed by Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, ex-chair Ann Ravel believes that there is support for expanded regulation in the wake of reports foreign governments spent $100,000 on 2016 political ads on Facebook.

She would include "fake news," not just paid ads, to be regulated, though it's never defined other than the Democrat's description of "disinformation." And anybody who shares or retweets it could face a libel suit.

Thankfully the FEC commissioner is against it, and has been warning about the left's effort to regulate political talk.

The proposal immediately came under fire from from the Republican FEC commissioner who for years has been warning of the left's effort to regulate political talk they don't like, especially on conservative newsfeeds like Drudge.

No idea of what "disinformation" is in a political message. Let's leave it to the leftist's who dreamed this up. This horrible first amendment crusher would be used by both the L and the R as a political gag. Terrible leftist liberal idea.

"A fatal flaw of Ann's proposal is that it cannot define what is, or is not, ‘disinformation' in a political message. Nevertheless, it proposes to tag threats of libel lawsuits and liability to thousands of American citizens who might want to retweet or forward a message that somebody else subjectively considers to be ‘disinformational.' I call that the big chill."

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Well this means there would have to be certified panels of experts to confirm and prove news stories are real or fake.

What does THAT remind you of ?

originally posted by: xuenchen
Well this means there would have to be certified panels of experts to confirm and prove news stories are real or fake.

What does THAT remind you of ?

Reminds me of the 6 huge Corps that already do this. But they want to control FB, Twitter, Drudge tooooooo.

I can't seem to find this story anywhere that isn't a right wing blog or opinion rag and a copy of the above.
Now why is that I wonder.

Ill leave it up to you all. You're so good at pointing it out continually.

Ill give you a hint it rhymes with Faye Knuse.

Please wait whilst the ministry of information reviews your post....

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I can't seem to find this story anywhere that isn't a right wing blog or opinion rag and a copy of the above.
Now why is that I wonder.

Ill leave it up to you all. You're so good at pointing it out continually.

Ill give you a hint it rhymes with Faye Knuse.

If you were one of the many leftist-liberal news outlets would you want this out?

This is much better only being a right wing nut case conspiracy theory.

It should only be for the so called news organizations, if they are putting stuff out that people are supposed to believe is real and from a real news organization then surely it must be true .....?
Another way to punish the people by means of the msm .....stupid

There is a lot of fake news out there on the conservative side, much of it promoted by the Russians, but some of it is promoted by American conservatives or even business owners wanting to make money off of people who pay attention to their media. One thing that bothers me quite a bit is that people are being manipulated by this, and are using false facts to make political decisions.

One solution to this problem is to teach people to critically think and to do their own research to verify what they see on TV, hear on the radio, or read on the internet. But to make matters more confusing, instead of weeding out the fake news that prevails on the conservative side of things, the conservatives point fingers and pretend that the liberals are the ones publishing fake news.

What should be done about people who write and publish false stories (not opinion pieces, but news stories that are legitimately based on false facts or made up completely) explicitly to manipulate the general population? I can definitely see there being a problem with the government regulating this sort of thing, as it encroaches on free speech.

But what about stories like Pizza Gate? That debunked conspiracy accused top Democrats of being involved with human trafficking. Surely, this is libel? People actually fall for this sort of thing, believe it, and then base their political decisions on it.

The pizzagate subreddit was shut down on Reddit for violating its anti-doxing policy and the conspiracy theory itself was debunked by many different organizations, including Snopes, Fox News, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

I think the best solution is for companies like Facebook to choose to flag false news on their own terms, without government regulation on the issue. Facebook has already hired both conservative and neutral organizations to aid them in sifting through posts and sort out fact from fiction.

If users of social media were able to discern fact from fiction, this wouldn't be necessary - but they aren't. And a lot of the fake or misleading news is sophisticated enough that I can see how it could trick people, as it has even tricked me - sometimes I will repeat a talking point I have been misled into believing, only to have someone else debunk it for me with facts or by pointing out how it was taken out of context.

Sure, conservatives are benefiting from the lies being spread on their side of the field at this point in time. It sure makes worrying about "fake news" seem awfully silly if you are benefiting from it so much, right?

But analysts point out that Russia is intent on dividing the United States, not favoring the Republican party. Russia has already made quite a few Facebook pages pretending to be liberal organizations. How long until they start spreading legitimately fake news and conspiracies for liberals to eat up? This would result in both sides of the isle basing their decisions on lies and accusing each other of things that are entirely fabricated.

Let's say that I started to follow a page portraying itself as supporting Black Lives Matter (something I wouldn't do) and this page began to spread false or misleading information (propaganda) meant to radicalize me? What if I thought this site was honestly meant to promote the well-being of blacks, but the real purpose was to confuse me into turning against my fellow Americans? Wouldn't I want to know?

It may sound far-fetched, but this is what Russia is trying to do. In fact, Russia was recently caught red-handed running a Black Lives Matter page doing just that. And Russia isn't the only one spreading "false news" on social media - one businessman interviewed by NPR has made quite a lot of money off of advertising from people who visit his "false news" site. He tried baiting Democrats for a while, but found that they were less gullible, and focused on Republicans.

a reply to: seasonal

Lot's of people make Proposals. I remember the one about giving everyone on capital hill an ice cream cone when the weather man got the forecast wrong.

I'd say this one has even less chance than that one did and everyone loves ice cream.

While it's good in principle, the nutjobs that believe in and spread the lies espoused are in such an orbit (or mandela affected alternate timeline) out of our solar system, they would no doubt jump on the conspiracy parallel that would no doubt be dreamt up five minutes later that evil gubmint was taking away their only source of twoof.

A look over threads here shows a lust for lies from people prepared to shout fake news at stories they simply don't like.
Jesus, alex jones was in court recently pleading that he was a BS artist and that everything on his site was merely for comic value yet, here people still use his website as a source for breaking news.
Funnily enough, trump supporters on this thread calling 'fake news' a good thing or this a mere plot by evil Democrats(yes you have to ignore who controls both houses in america, Deny Ignorance lol).

It's a little late for those too far gone anyways, for those that believe a Clinton is behind every recorded death ever (it was Hillary not an asp that killed Cleopatra) would just get their fix of what they call reality from elsewhere.

Social media and even sites like this should force people to use real names, would people be pushing the likes of pizzagate or their lust for neo-nazi marches if their boss, friends and family could find out what their tough guy internet persona was saying?

a reply to: xuenchen

It reminds me of the USSR.

And that's exactly where the Leftist Democrats are working to take us. And ultimately, they may very well succeed.

Only connection I found was FEC concerns about political ads of Facebook and Google.

This is what I entered in the search window: facebook regulated by FEC

645,000 results. Many sources carrying it. For whatever that's worth.

a reply to: seasonal
If this was in force now, then everybody who spread an anti-Trump story would be vulnerable.
If they haven't allowed for that possibility, then they really haven't thought this through.

originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: seasonal

Lot's of people make Proposals. I remember the one about giving everyone on capital hill an ice cream cone when the weather man got the forecast wrong.

I'd say this one has even less chance than that one did and everyone loves ice cream.

The person who made the proposal is an ex FEC chair and says she has "support" for her proposal.

I think libs are upset cause this shows their fascist leanings.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: seasonal
If this was in force now, then everybody who spread an anti-Trump story would be vulnerable.
If they haven't allowed for that possibility, then they really haven't thought this through.

No "fake news" is left undefined. So it can be what ever anyone (liberal) says it is. I doubt this would be evenly enforced.

originally posted by: seasonal
No "fake news" is left undefined. So it can be what ever anyone (liberal) says it is. I doubt this would be evenly enforced.

But if a government body was doing the enforcing, and the government happened not to be liberal, then it could be enforced against the liberals. They are potentially offering Trump the power to censor CNN. That's the point they seem to be missing. It is a classic example of the "double-edged sword".

a reply to: seasonal

I think this is yet another example of people here over reacting to something that happens all the time so they can cry about liberals being the worlds greatest evil once again.

Or haven't you noticed??

I mean just look at all your posts. How many times do you need to use the word liberal before it becomes obvious as to what your bias is??

a reply to: mOjOm

I am also biased against conserv. I think anyone who allows any ideology to override logic can fall for this type of shenanigans.
This story is about liberal lefties, so of course that is going to be in my responses. And it seems like the liberal, liberal, liberal, liberals have graduated to fascism. Hurrrrayyy.

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: seasonal
No "fake news" is left undefined. So it can be what ever anyone (liberal) says it is. I doubt this would be evenly enforced.

But if a government body was doing the enforcing, and the government happened not to be liberal, then it could be enforced against the liberals. They are potentially offering Trump the power to censor CNN. That's the point they seem to be missing. It is a classic example of the "double-edged sword".

The people who propose such things never consider the idea of the double-edged sword.

We see it today. When Trump uses EO to undo what Obama did with EO, they scream, but it was warned that if it was done that way, it could easily be undone that way. They just never thought they'd lose power. Of course, now the barn door is open and every time the power changes, we'll see the war of EOs.

Some things should be left undone to begin with.

a reply to: seasonal

Oh yeah. Because as we all know we can always count on the fact that if 1 liberal does something that means it's fair game to apply that to every liberal leaning person on earth and treat them all the same right???

Regardless of how many other liberals might also be against it as well doesn't matter. Just ignore them and keep that generalization going. Make sure you tie Liberal with as many words like communism and fascism etc as you can and just keep that narrative going.

Good form pal. Nothing wrong with that kind of message.