Germany considers fining Facebook for leaving up links to fake news stories.

Courtesy of Heat Street:  

The government of Germany is considering imposing a legal regime that would allow fining social networks such as Facebook up to 500,000 euros ($522,000) for each day the platform leaves a “fake news” story up without deleting it. 

In the name of combating harms from false news, the German government next year will consider the bill, which has bipartisan support, that will allow both official and private complainants to flag content that is considered “fake news”. 

The law would also force the social networks to create in-country offices focused on responding to takedown demands and would make these networks responsible for compensation if a post by individual users were found to slander someone.

You know what I think that is a damn fine idea. 

You would hope that most people would be smart enough to filter through the bullshit themselves, but what 2016 has clearly proven is that that is simply not the case.

So instead government are going to have step in and protect people from their own ignorance.

Google is going to cut off revenue streams to sites that promote fake news.

An example of a fake news item that showed up on Google.

Courtesy of The Verge: 

Today, Google announced that its advertising tools will soon be closed to websites that promote fake news, a policy that could cut off revenue streams for publications that peddle hoaxes on platforms like Facebook. The decision comes at a critical time for the tech industry, whose key players have come under fire for not taking necessary steps to prevent fake news from proliferating across the web during the 2016 US election. It’s thought that, given the viral aspects of fake news, social networks and search engines were gamed by partisan bad actors intending to influence the outcome of the race.

Gee ya think?

You may also remember that last month Google announced that it was going to try and help users filter out fake news stories.

Though apparently that has not really kicked in yet.

In other news it turns out that Facebook may have a way of filtering out fake news stories but is not using it for fear of upsetting its conservative users.

Courtesy of Gizmodo: 

Gizmodo has learned that the company is, in fact, concerned about the issue, and has been having a high-level internal debate since May about how the network approaches its role as the largest news distributor in the US. The debate includes questions over whether the social network has a duty to prevent misinformation from spreading to the 44 percent of Americans who get their news from the social network. 

According to two sources with direct knowledge of the company’s decision-making, Facebook executives conducted a wide-ranging review of products and policies earlier this year, with the goal of eliminating any appearance of political bias. One source said high-ranking officials were briefed on a planned News Feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories, but disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people’s feeds. According to the source, the update was shelved and never released to the public. It’s unclear if the update had other deficiencies that caused it to be scrubbed. 

“They absolutely have the tools to shut down fake news,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous citing fear of retribution from the company. The source added, “there was a lot of fear about upsetting conservatives after Trending Topics,” and that “a lot of product decisions got caught up in that.”

So in other words Facebook may have helped elect an unqualified megalomaniac because they feared offending thin skinned conservatives with the truth.

Jesus H. Christ!