And Now The Prime Minister Of Canada Is Threatening To Fine Social Media Companies Over 'Fake News'
from the please-stop dept
Oh good. Now Canada wants in on the "fake news" action.
Canada is introducing a digital charter that will impose "meaningful financial consequences" on tech companies if they don't reign in misinformation on their platforms, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday.
Trudeau made the announcement during a speech in Paris at the Viva Technology conference. He said that social media companies have “failed their users” and announced the Canada will establish a new digital charter aimed at universal access, countering online extremism and misinformation, and transparency.
Not included in this announcement:
- What "misinformation" means in this context
- How fines will be handed out
- What collateral damage this will cause to free expression
- Why any of this is necessary
Apparently, this all flows from the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand. On top of "eradicating terrorist and violent content… once and for all," the Canadian government will apparently be punishing tech companies for failing to eradicate anything the Canadian government believes isn't real. The phrase "meaningful financial consequences" was used.
Perhaps the biggest misconception government officials hold about social media platforms is that moderation is easy. They find a few examples of stuff they think should be banned and they assume anyone can do the same thing, even when dealing with millions of uploads a minute. They also believe moderators should instinctively recognize this content immediately, no matter the context, and act to remove it before it's seen by others.
Something as nebulous as "fake news" is going to be a lot harder to moderate than "terrorist and violent content." Even the latter has its own issues, as much of what's considered "terrorist and violent" can also be newsworthy or crucial to law enforcement investigations.
"Fake news" tends to be whatever top government officials declare it is. If that's all it takes, tech companies will be fined as often as grandstanders open their mouths. As we've seen here in the US, President Trump can't go more than a day without calling someone or something "fake news." If that same hostility towards the press is shown in Canada -- and it's not inconceivable someone like Trump could become Prime Minister -- tech companies will have two choices: pay fines constantly or subject their users to a ton of moderation collateral damage.
This won't make things better for Canadians. And it won't do them any favors when it comes to them expressing themselves online. Demanding more moderation using meaningless buzzwords is a great way to open up a portal to moderation hell. If the Canadian government can find a better approach to tackling "fake news" than perpetually fining social media companies, it probably should excuse itself from the discussion.
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Filed Under: canada, disinformation, fake news, fines, free speech, justin trudeau, social media
Reader Comments
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Too big to moderate is the online version of too big to fail.
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Too big to moderate is the online
Good content moderations is impossible at any scale.
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Re: Re:
There are examples of well moderated sites.
HackerNews, for example, does a very good job of it.
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Exactly. This is what I've been saying for a while now, though I prefer the term "too big to succeed."
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I have new for you, it is impossible to moderate the output of the human race, and efforts to do so will silence the majority, regardless of whether their views are mainstream, extremist, or somewhere in between.
Why do you support politicians in tackling problems caused by a fraction of a percent of humanity removing the facilities enjoyed by the majority of humanity.
Besides which problems are not solved by removing the means, alternatives means are always available, but by tackling the root causes, which is a much more difficult problem, often directly related to wealth inequality.
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Nwo tosses this up to the Canooks to see how many riot before introducing this kind of crap to the US audience. TAKE OFF, EH
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Moderation of idiots, by idiots, to protect idiots from hearing idiot ideas..
Prove it.
Prove opinion? In our dreams.
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So you are saying that they are obligated to moderate to a vague and shifting set of standards of others? I believe the word for that is "censorship" - moderation is when you do it for yourself and your own interests.
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Fake Out
It'll be interesting if someone has to fact-check all the statements coming from the White House. That would pretty much shut down El Cheetos.
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Re: Fake Out
The Orangutan in Chief wouldn't get to post anything at all.
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Re: Re: Fake Out
As policy this is very much in keeping with the Frankfurt School philosophy to effect social change. Effeminate in Canada or Orange in the US - which is more willing and eager to destroy society in order to save society. Effeminate is definitely winning the race.
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Re: Fake Out
It would also stifle both houses and every agency.
Pai would be wrapped in at least ten layers of duct tape.
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Global warming
Well this ought to finally get rid of all that global warming fake news.
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People are putting more effort into stopping people from talking about extremism than they are stopping the actual extremism.
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Pointy-haired boss/manager/politician logic: Until someone points out a problem it doesn't exist, and as such the one who does so is the creator of the problem and deserves all the blame for it.
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It could be said they are getting extreme with their efforts to silence discussions of extremism.
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Its easier to put loudmouths in jail than overthrow sovereign nations.
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I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
If you can't name your sources, and link to them, it's fake news. Period. No more fake anonymous nonsense. That's a very reasonable yardstick. If someone beats reality to the punch and makes an intelligent plugin that automatically ignores all news that doesn't have proper vetted real sources, I'd install it in a second.
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
What would you consider to be a primary source? A circular round of one fake source referencing another fake source with a primary source?
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Re: Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
You just described Fox-Breitbart
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
That's easy. Me!
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
You're setting a very high bar for intelligence here. Keep in mind that a system as intelligent as a human being would, by definition, frequently get taken in by misinformation, because that's what happens to even very intelligent human beings. So you're basically saying "if we had a system that was smarter than us, it would be smarter than us."
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
So witnessing something in person and then blogging about it makes it "fake news" because there is nothing about it online to link to yet?
Anonymous sources for news should not be allowed anymore?
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A whistleblower may rely on anonymity to protect themselves from blowback against the people/organization being exposed by the whistleblowing. Your proposition would render all such whistleblowing “fake news”, even if all the information exposed is factual.
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
If you can't name your sources, and link to them, it's fake news. Period.
That would wipe out nearly everything Trump says, you recognize?
Also, that suggests you have literally no experience in journalism at all. Confidential sources are kinda key for keeping government honest through whistleblowers. What you don't seem to understand is that good news sources involve vetting the information they get from sources, even if those sources are not revealed.
The standard you set up here is not only impossible, it's illogical.
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Re: Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
probably because I can be kinda mean: I keep wanting to read Masnicks comment as "I didn't know thinking could be an alergine".
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Re: Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
This would be for a court test within the law courts to figure out how much and if the fines levied were accurate and true and to what degree the named party is culpable in damages.
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Re: Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
Also linking your source for information verified could become a copyright issue on the flipside if naming resources becomes a prerequisite for non fake news.
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
And how do they publish information for you to link to. Would the government grant itself first publication rights, and licence a few publishers as first publishers? That would give governments what they really want, control over published 'news'.
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
If you can't name your sources, and link to them, it's fake news. Period.
Do you have a source or a link to any substantiating data?
Guess it's fake news then.
You want to replace your own internal filter (your brain) with the choices made by others? Why would you do that?
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Re: Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
Oh, maybe I could name my sources or even link to them, but because I had to dig and dig and dig and dig.. to get to the heart of the truth of the matter, maybe I choose to not offer them up for free. Go dig for yourself or don't believe what you read. I don't care. I'm not a journalist just because I write. I have no ulterior motive to hornswoggle. I am not a politician. I don't have to prove Jack. Go disprove what it may be or not be. Lets debate. But don't try to shut me down or out because of bias or preconceived predjudice.
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
You forgot to include a source for that definition of fake news.
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Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
It could expressing your opinion will become fake news if tHEY get tHEIR way.
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Re: Re: I'd Think Defining Fake News Should Be Very Easy
NO ONE EXCEPT THE PRESS can or should be accused of publishing Fake News. Definitely not a planetful of overly opinionated schmucks.
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Well 99% of Canadian parliament will now eventually be banned sooner or later.
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Nah, just the opposing side, or those on the correct side who wander off the reservation.
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“Just the opposing side”
I did not say that SM did not have to be proactive in the bannings or what it considered “extreme”😈
My my members of parliament you certainly have said ALOT of things open to interpretation now that I think of it.
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Remember people "fake news" is just a buzzword for "A thing - either true or false - that the government or other people don't like people saying".
If the Snowden leaks happened today, governments would be calling them fake news. If this law was in place they'd be demanding social media remove news and discussion of the leak or face fines.
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Remember the goal is to eleminate violent/terrorist content. NOT eleminate voilence/terrorism
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That's a pretty extreme view of this proposed legislation. They want to kill any news they don't like, not just violent or terrorist news. Things like:
You get the picture.
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For many government officials, I'd agree with you. Trudeau, on the other hand, has had a strong social media presence for years, understands technology, and no doubt realizes the difficulties involved here.
Which worries me. Because it means he has some ulterior motive for doing this. And normally he prefers to do things that may affect him personally in a negative manner if it will advance his politics and benefit his corporate supporters.
So... what is the secondary reason at play here?
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I caught on the national news the announcement last night.
The facial reactions of those near him were telling and mirrored my own as he spouted off.
Was he bribed threatened or just enjoying another episode standard for beaurocrats.
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It seems obvious from the complete and utter lack of penalties for people who actually create and spread "fake news" that every single one of these efforts is at best nothing more than a cash grab. And I hope it's just that because the next couple most likely possibilities almost immediately degenerate to "we want to compete with China...."
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Ah standard European fare then...
Grumble grumble...
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"people who actually create and spread "fake news""
And who are these people? What defines fake news?
The devil is in the details.
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If someone flags a government statement as fake news ...
... Twitter will have to remove it until the government can prove they are not lying?
Interesting times ahead!
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All animals are equal. Some animals however...
Nice idea, but I can all but guarantee that if there's not explicit language making any statements made by a politician immune from the 'fake news' law, there will be epic tantrums should anyone have the utter audacity to actually apply it to them, such that companies will be strongly 'suggested' to give them a pass.
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Re: All animals are equal. Some animals however...
Twitter: now mr prime minister I do as I am told. Perhaps you would like to put your speech’s in a newspaper instead? I think they still read those?
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Re: Re: All animals are equal. Some animals however...
Twitter-Because remember it’s not your speech that you banned mr prime minister.
It was what Was IN that speech.
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The Christchurch attack was created to destroy the internet!
This is exactly why Christchurch happened: The open internet was the target!
The attacker was put there by the globalist elite. He was instructed to commit mass murder AND stream it on Facebook! This was precisely so the free internet could be blamed and they could advance their agenda of thought control: His goal was to create a pretext people can't easily refuse. Governments are terrified of our ability to think freely and having no control over modern culture, they want the old days where every form of mass communication could be controlled. The end goal here is global dictatorship.
How much longer until people start seeing those things? For how long are we going to keep playing their games? This is a carefully organized plan to turn the entire world into Communist China: Please wake up already!
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Re: The Christchurch attack was created to destroy the internet!
Holy crap, the poster boy for "Remember to Take Your Meds!" just crawled out of the woodwork.
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Re: Definately user error
Sorry sir. There seems to be an increasingly common problem where people who want WND.com and accidentally type in techdirt.com into their web browsers.
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'It is a sacrifice I am willing to (have them) make.'
If the Canadian government can find a better approach to tackling "fake news" than perpetually fining social media companies, it probably should excuse itself from the discussion.
Oh I dunno, from the perspective of someone in the government that sounds pretty damn good to me. A constant influx of free money as companies fail to do the impossible? It's like a whole new tax except there's no upper limit on either amount charged nor how many times you can charge them.
Add the sleazy/easy PR for 'Doing Something' and the opportunity to rile up the gullible any time you want by pointing out that the tech companies can't comply and thus obviously don't really care about the problem, and from a political POV this is an absolute gold-mine of possibilities both currently and in the future.
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Hmmm.
So basically they want to(or will) make any fiction (as in the genre of intertainment, not as in a tool for deception) that people not already knowedgeable of might mistake for true, illegal?
So that seems to rule out basically any fantasy/sci-fi/modern day romance book that doesn't have cover art or an intro that explains that it's fiction.
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Real news versus conspiracy theory
And how do you get out of the rabbit-hole of reporting where one person wants facts and the other person is so dug into conspiracy theories that they can't see a way out?
It goes something like this:
Person 1: Alex Jones says China is going to bomb us.
Person 2: What?! There's no truth to that story.
Person 1: That's what they want you to think.
Person 2: Then cite one source that says it's true.
Person 1: Get with it man, the government won't let people talk about this. That's why there are no stories about it.
Person 2: So you don't have one source for this?
Person 1: Wake up, people- the world is ending around you. (And by the way, please buy the products of the following sponsors of this show.)
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Real fake
If Canada was going to be as correct and accurate as Trump has been, I’d be somewhat interested. But I have a feeling they want to shut down real news and remove anything they don’t like; leaving ONLY fake news. Much how the progressive movement in the US continues to push the beyond debunked story of collusion.
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