Emmanuel Macron: French president announces 'fake news' law

Authored by bbc.com and submitted by AdamCannon

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Macron said attempts were being made to undermine democracy

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans for a new law to combat so-called fake news.

He said that during elections social media would face tougher rules over the content that they put online.

Deliberate attempts were being made to blur lines between truth and lies and undermine people's faith in liberal democracy, he added.

Correspondents say there is no question that Mr Macron had Russia in mind when he made the announcement.

He has already spoken out publicly about what he sees as Moscow's attempts to manipulate opinion in Europe and the United States.

Speaking at a new year reception for the media, Mr Macron said it was possible now at a cost of just a few thousand euros to propagate untruths over social media.

"Thousands of propaganda accounts on social networks are spreading all over the world, in all languages, lies invented to tarnish political officials, personalities, public figures, journalists," he said.

In response, he proposed imposing tougher rules on social media about revealing the sources of apparent news content.

He also said limits would be put on how much could be spent on sponsored news material.

"We will develop our legal system to protect democracy from this fake news," he said, quoted by AFP.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mr Macron hosted Mr Putin at the 17th century palace of Versailles, near Paris.

France's audiovisual regulator would be given extra powers to "fight any destabilisation attempt by television channels controlled or influenced by foreign states", he added.

Mr Macron denounced Russia media outlets RT and Sputnik at a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin last May, accusing them of spreading "deceitful propaganda".

Since then RT has launched a French-language TV channel.

kunlun on January 3rd, 2018 at 23:11 UTC »

Not trying to take a side, it just seems the BBC article is not reporting it all. From the article from Le Monde.

Emmanuel Macron a annoncé mercredi 3 janvier qu’un « texte de loi » allait être déposé « prochainement » pour lutter contre la diffusion des fake news (« fausses informations ») sur Internet en « période électorale ». Le chef de l’Etat a annoncé ce futur texte lors de ses vœux à la presse, essentiellement consacrés à l’économie des médias, et prononcés à l’Elysée face à des journalistes et acteurs des médias.

It seems it will only be in action during the electoral period.

« Nous allons faire évoluer notre dispositif juridique pour protéger la vie démocratique de ces fausses nouvelles », a déclaré Emmanuel Macron lors de son discours. « Les plates-formes se verront imposer des obligations de transparence accrue sur tous les contenus sponsorisés afin de rendre publique l’identité des annonceurs et de ceux qui les contrôlent, mais aussi de limiter les montants consacrés à ces contenus », a-t-il précisé.

The platforms will need to have increased transparency rules for sponsored contents in order to make public the identity of the broadcasters and those that manage them, as well as to limit the amount devoted to those.

Edit; grammar

chasebrendon on January 3rd, 2018 at 21:03 UTC »

Who’s checking the checkers checking the checkers?

DeepDishPi on January 3rd, 2018 at 21:01 UTC »

There are already laws against libel and slander. The tricky part is making sure they can be enforced but not abused.