industryterm:fake news law

Macron’s Fake News Solution Is a Problem – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/29/macrons-fake-news-solution-is-a-problem

point de vue d’une juriste doctorante à Toulouse, mis en avant dans FP
la manchette d’appel dans la newsletter : #The_solution_is_the_problem (tout simplement)
(la conclusion)

France’s fake news law will most likely pass with flying colors, though it will almost certainly be challenged constitutionality by political opponents or private citizens. A better approach to the problem would have been to strengthen the formidable legal arsenal already in place. As there is no legal definition of fake news under French law, it remains unclear how magistrates will be able to judge what is false or true in political matters. Implementing such a law would require judges to be extremely creative and subjective in interpreting what exactly constitutes fake news. Second, such provisions could lead to self-censorship as online publishers, fearing legal action, might curtail what is perfectly legitimate speech. The questions remains: How would this law be implemented if, for example, a French politician goes too far in publicly deriding his or her opponents or a foreign leader, as British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson famously did when he published a poem insinuating that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fornicated with goats?

Macron’s proposed legislation has no answer. It will not solve the problem of fake news and may indeed amplify it.

Malaysian government using fake news law to crush freedom of speech - CNET
▻https://www.cnet.com/news/malaysian-government-passing-fake-news-laws

https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/_l2c8MW-LhOmoEIxayLqDiW6Oi0=/670x503/2018/04/03/47d9c5ad-3a3c-4b30-bcbc-03304945eaf1/gettyimages-937983820.jpg

The bill makes not only creating fake news illegal, but also sharing it. A Malaysian citizen could be punished, then, for simply retweeting fake news. If found guilty, Malaysians can be sentenced to prison for up to six years and fined up to 500,000 Malaysian ringgit (which roughly converts to $130,000). Plus, it’s not a domestic law — it applies to those outside the country who are responsible for fake news.

“This legislation is problematic on so many different levels,” David Kaye, clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said to CNET. “The definition of fake news is so broad it seems like the government could decide anything could be fake news. On top of that, it has these extraordinarily harsh penalties.”

Case study: A scandal erupted in 2015 around Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak when the Wall Street Journal reported that around $700 million in funds were transferred from a state-owned company to his personal bank accounts. Over 10 sites were taken down for reporting on this, according to EFF.

With the new fake news law, journalists who wrote those stories and citizens who shared them online could face legal punishment and even jail time. That includes international journalists.

“[The new law] applies to non-Malaysian citizens internationally if ’fake news’ published overseas involves Malaysian citizens,” said a Khairil Yusof, team coordinator at Sinar Project, an organization that defends digital rights of citizens in Malaysia. “For example the WSJ journalists that broke the story [that alleged Prime Minister Razak’s corruption] face the possibility of being jailed and fined when visiting Malaysia.”

#Fake_news #Malaisie