At First This Seemed Like A Good Idea...But Then I |Thought About It.

[Paul]

(NB The following is about a proposed law, it has not yet been passed, or even fully debated.)

On the news today they were discussing a new law to combat fake news. To put it simply: Make all websites responsible for the material on their site and fine them if they allow any fake news on their site. They were talking about hitting Facebook, Twitter, Whats App, etc. in line with massive fines. Which as far as I am concerned is a good idea.

But.....

You cannot aim a law at particular institutions, it has to be for one and all. So it would also hit smaller sites like forums.

Like this forum.

There is at least one person here who admits to never listening to the news, then posts what they think should be true to support their arguments, and often isn't.  At all other times they are a good and valued member of this forum, but if this law comes about, you would have to ban this member or face prosecution. In other words, you would have to ban "a good and valued member of this forum"!

Plus, if you look at the threads in "political debate" quite often someone will make a point, and state "facts" which are blindingly obviously not "facts" to prove their point (particularly, but not limited to, the Trump related threads). You would have to start banning people for that.

Then you have got to remove all old posts that state inaccurate facts, I'm guessing that is a hell of a lot of posts to go through. Remember this includes posts where someone posts an inaccurate fact about anything.

And monitor/moderate all new posts before they are posted.

On top of that, you you would have to know what is true and what is not. For example I just posted, on the "Why We Need Armed Flight Attendants Who Are Prepared To Shoot To Kill" thread, one fact about the British economy and three facts taken from recent British opinion polls. Do you know if I made them up? The same thread also contains to quotes by "someone once said....", do you know if those are genuine quotes? You will need to know these things if this law goes through.

It would be impossible to do all this, and the level of fine would make most websites like this impossible to run.

So I think this law is a case of "be careful what you wish for...."

Your thoughts?

[cassandra]

Who are they proposing is going to decide is fake or not?

[Paul]

I would guess the final decision would either be down to a judge or twelve men.

[cassandra]

It's going to be great, we can trust all the news when we get it a year after it has happened and is approved.

[kristina]

It's going to be great, we can trust all the news when we get it a year after it has happened and is approved.

 

[MooseMom]

I would guess the final decision would either be down to a judge or twelve men.

Or twelve women.

[Charlie B53]

A law such as you have mentioned within the USA would very quickly clog the Courts with many cases/motions to overturn the law on grounds that it violates Free Speech.

Open Forums, such as IHD, Facebook, and so many others to include Editorial pages both on-line and in print allow the people to express their opinion, regardless of facts.

Claiming 'Fake News' cannot over rule the Right of Free Speech.

Any Legislator, Congress person, of any Government, that votes to restrict such a basic Constitutional Right should be removed from office.  Whether by recall or by popular vote at the next election.

Now ut could be possible that any and all places that publish such 'Editorial Content' may be required to also publish some type of disclaimer, pointing at the the article or statement is NOT the views of that Publisher, that the article or statement is merely the opinion of the writer.

[Paul]

Yeah but the Internet is international. It would only take the EU to introduce this law to get websites panicking. Remember, the EU contains many more "customers" than the US. Think of the number of websites who have added cookie disclaimers since that new EU law. Even without the EU, it would only take two or three large countries to adopt such a law to make it effectively worldwide.

For example think of Hollywood. Major movies used to be made with the domestic (American) market in mind, the rest of us had to put up with whatever Americans wanted. Nowadays films are made for the international market, to hell with what Americans want. If Hollywood cannot survive without the rest of the world, Facebook, Twitter, et al, certainly cannot.

[Michael Murphy]

The reality in the US if the censorship is not done by the government the operator of the board or site has great discretion if creating rules that can be used to eliminate postings that break its rules, if you want freedom create your own website.

[Simon Dog]

You cannot aim a law at particular institutions, it has to be for one and all. So it would also hit smaller sites like forums.

Actually, you can.   Various employment laws (for example, providing health insurance) kick in only when a company as >= N employees.   It would be easy to impose regulations only for websites owned by entities with more than 100 full-time employees.

But, that does not mean it would be a good idea.

The cure for bad info is good info.  Perhaps an independent, voluntary, 3rd party fact checking org that gives sites an approval seal - sort of like the UL or FM seal on products.   If it was widely accepted, it's absence on a major site would be telling.

[Paul]

The reality in the US if the censorship is not done by the government the operator of the board or site has great discretion if creating rules that can be used to eliminate postings that break its rules, if you want freedom create your own website.

Yeah but how do you know enough stuff to police it? For example: "One problem with Brexit is that when Britain leaves the EU, most British people on dialysis will be prevented from visiting EU countries." Now if that is true, it is important information that needs to be left on this site. If it is a lie, then it would need to be deleted under this law. Do you know if it is true or not? If a website has to check every single little fact like that, you either have to stop publishing useful information or hire a team who scour the site who have the time and resources to check each one. That is going to be very expensive and beyond a website like this, even if it started taking adverts.

(In case anyone wants to know, the fact I quoted is probably, but not certainly, the truth - I'm hoping it won't be -. At the moment UK citizens get free dialysis in all EU countries, after Brexit we will probably have to pay, and two weeks dialysis is a lot to pay on top of the cost of a foreign holiday, most won't be able to afford it.)

[Paul]

Various employment laws (for example, providing health insurance) kick in only when a company as >= N employees.   It would be easy to impose regulations only for websites owned by entities with more than 100 full-time employees.

Yeah but if you outsource advertising and hosting (providing and maintaining servers) you can run a pretty big company on a tiny staff. I think under those outsourcing conditions and with a scant disregard to fake news and other undesirable posting, I could run Facebook with well under a hundred employees. Remember, when it started off it had just two members of staff and one of those was more a finance guy than a member of staff, the other was Mark Zuckerberg. So basically no employees, just the boss and his money man.

[cassandra]

(In case anyone wants to know, the fact I quoted is probably, but not certainly, the truth - I'm hoping it won't be -. At the moment UK citizens get free dialysis in all EU countries, after Brexit we will probably have to pay, and two weeks dialysis is a lot to pay on top of the cost of a foreign holiday, most won't be able to afford it.)

Well I don't believe that's true at all. At the moment the NHS pays for British citizens to dialyse in EU countries.
The clinic has to comply with whatever criteria the clinic from the British citizen wants. The insurance companies from other EU citizens pay the NHS for D sessions if they are dialysing here in The UK.

[Paul]

At the moment the NHS pays for British citizens to dialyse in EU countries.

No, that is not the situation. All EU countries have to offer the same health benefits to all citizens of all member states. Because all member states offer their own citizens free dialysis they have to offer it to all EU citizens. So we can dialyse in Europe for free, and Europeans can dialyse over here for free. The NHS pays nothing, except that it is obliged to pay for other EU citizen's dialysis when they are in Britain.

A hard brexit will definitely bring this to an end. A soft brexit will depend on what May asks for and what the EU agrees to, which means it will probably come to an end (last I heard, they were only talking about emergency treatment, not treatment for existing conditions). However I am hoping that someone on the other side of the Channel realises that free dialysis is a good way to get British holidaymakers to go to Europe and spend their money, rather than some other continent (Disneyland Paris rather than Disneyland California).

I'm not optimistic about that.

[Riki]

I doubt anyone who can get free dialysis in the EU would bother going to California.  in the US you pay up front for your treatment or you don't get it, plain and simple.  When I go to the US, I try to schedule it in a way where I only need two treatments, and even then it will cost me somewhere in the vicinity of $1000US.

BTW, I know this isn't really on topic, it's just something that came to mind while reading.  Carry on..

[Michael Murphy]

Ultimately sites like IHD are kept honest by its members,  these sites work as well as they do because opinions are always fact checked by other members so the give and take of honest debate between equals should be a good example of free speech.  This kind of discourse is what the American framers of our constitution desired by the first amendment.

[Simon Dog]

in the US you pay up front for your treatment or you don't get it, plain and simple. 

You will get in the ER without ability to pay, but you have to be close to death to qualify.

[Riki]

in the US you pay up front for your treatment or you don't get it, plain and simple. 

You will get in the ER without ability to pay, but you have to be close to death to qualify.

I would never plan a trip with going to the ER for dialysis as a plan. *G*

My class is currently in the planning stages for our study tour in April, and most are wanting to go to Europe.  I'm unsure what that means for me for dialysis, as I've no idea how Canadians are billed for dialysis in Europe.  It's highly possible that I won't be going anyway, as the trip that me and 2 other girls in the class are working on, a Mediterranean cruise, isn't panning out for me, as I can't find any cruises with dialysis services in our time frame.

[Paul]

I may be very wrong about this, but it is worth looking into: I thought  Canada and the EU had some sort of agreement.