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Very much against it. It's too easy for a governing elite to declare as "fake news" anything that contradicts their agenda. I'd rather have some sites posting whoppers (we can deal with CNN by going after their sponsors) than having a Thought Police deciding which news is real and which is fake. it's the same reason why I'm against "hate speech" laws.
I would like to see News station held accountable for printing or reporting stories that were poorly if at all vetted for the truth. We see far too man reports that are either factually wrong, taken out of context, or intentionally slanted to be damaging. News agencies will then hide behind such words as Poetic license, editorial, etc.
I for one would like to see the press held to a higher standard of reporting. In other words stop reporting opinions and start reporting facts.
Bad idea. That's pretty much government censorship. And you know that would be abused terribly by whomever is in power.
In other words, anything that is contradictory to what those in power are claiming, would be branded as fake news. Sort of like the way Trump and his lackeys already are doing, only it would be written into a law. It would be a giant step towards having a dictatorship. If there was to be totalitarian rule, wouldn't you think that the fools who promote it, would want the leader to be competent, instead of being an inept clown?
I could see this being feasible to some degree. All I ask is that the news being reported has been thoroughly investigated and that there is actual evidence of whatever it is they decide to report. Without evidence to back up a news story, it's basically fiction. News agencies should not be allowed to simply run a story based on hearsay. They should be required to actually do a little investigation into what they are planning to report to the American people. However, if people are scared to go that far, perhaps we should require news agencies to run a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen whenever they decide to report something that they do not know is actually true. Something like "This CNN special report has not yet been thoroughly investigated nor do we have actual proof that this story is factual. We will update you when we have more complete information." At least then people would know that they shouldn't take whatever they are seeing as the absolute truth just yet. And this would allow CNN or any other network to continue to report whatever they wished. They just wouldn't be allowed to report unsubstantiated information as real news.
Many of you appear never to have heard of the word "moderation" or the thing about yelling FIRE in a crowded room...
The Founders said clearly that our Constitution would ONLY work to govern a moral and ethical people(s). Whatever your views, I think many will agree that we do not consist of this any longer.
We KNOW politics has been gamed. Citizens United made it times 10. That Citizens United money is BUYING LIES. To make an assumption that people can withstand almost unlimited lies and BS from billionaires and make perfect sense of it...assumes a population that is not only moral and ethical, but educated, logical and reasonable.
The fact that most Americans couldn't point out the countries where our Military is fighting is just one little piece of proof...
Constitution and all, the Broadcast Media Licenses were originally only given with the promise of the stations being "for the public good". This has changed.
The "terrible decline" of America that the Right has been yapping about for decades seems to perfectly align with the availability of more and more propaganda (cable, AOL, internet, etc.)....
I'm not pretending to know all the answers. But I do know propaganda and brainwashing work and that the America public, in general, is easily influenced by BS.
A real truism is:
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Winston Churchill
This being the case, anyone who values truth should have some concerns.
To those who have no cares about whether stuff is accurate...well, none of this matters much.
Many many things can be accurately measured as either numbers...or true, or false...or debatable. But when the Lie is financed by billions and the truth is uncomfortable, Lies win.
A perfect example is the "coal thing". Coal plants are shutting down big time. Jobs are being lost. This will continue....no matter what happens. Yet millions actually believe or believed the Big Lie.
Also, real factory jobs that pay a living wage, benefits, health care and retirement....are simply not gonna happen like in the past. It doesn't matter how many times we say it. Ain't gonna happen.
Again, I don't claim to have all the answers but I certainly wouldn't bombard my wife and kids and friends with lies and falsehoods. Why then would I want lies masquerading as "the constitution" polluting our political and social lives??
The first key is education. Unfortunately, being dumb is still highly valued in this country (our POTUS loves the uneducated....it's hard to imagine other civilized countries making a statement like that)...
Lack of education leads to everything from addiction to disability to early death and poverty...and susceptibility to "The Con" - predators, etc.
I cannot believe that ANY American would even consider such a thing. The First Amendment is as close to sacred as anything in American government can be. Why would we criminalize speech? No, never in America. We cannot have government censorship of the news, which is what such a law would be.
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