FAKE NEWS EXPOSED: A Service of PoliticalChat.com

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

The bolded words were from the article, not from me. Moreover, the article makes clear in the last two paragraphs that Germany expects Facebook to police their content, not for the German government to do it. You sure do get spun up about stuff you don't understand.

Yes, but YOU picked the section of the article you wanted to quote. And before you backpedal too far, the article YOU linked to has the following headline:

"German courts should go after fake news on Facebook now: minister" Which means, in case you fail to understand the magnitude of the headline, the Justice Minister of Germany is urging German prosecutors and courts get more aggressive in this area, REGARDLESS of what Facebook might or might not do to "police itself".

From the article you linked to:

"Justice authorities must prosecute that, even on the internet," he (Maas) said, noting that offenders could face up to five years in jail. "Anyone who tries to manipulate the political discussion with lies needs to be aware (of the consequences)."

The issue of fake news has taken on new urgency after warnings by German and U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia has sought to influence elections and sway public opinion.

German government officials have expressed concern that fake news could influence the parliamentary election expected in September, in which Merkel will run for a fourth term.


The first part that I highlighted above: unlike Germany - the constitution in this country protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and very specifically was crafted to so that POLITICAL SPEECH was protected. You stated at the end of your quote that "it seems that the ever logical Germans are able to recognize what fake news is and isn't." Well, it looks like the "ever logical" Germans want to specifically get aggressive with controlling political speech on the internet - particularly when they can leverage the weight of the government's prosecutorial power on an entity like Facebook where private citizens can be identified and targeted. And we then see that the driver is probably not "defamation laws" as much as it is Merkel's re-election.

I'm sure that Merkel and Maas would likely benefit greatly from controlling "fake news", like observations that her lax immigration policies may have contributed to increased terrorist activity in Germany. I fear the incident in Berlin today may turn out to be another sad example.

[donquixote99]

There are names on the by-line. They get fired if they are shown to have made anything up.

[whell]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

There are names on the by-line. They get fired if they are shown to have made anything up.

Cow manure. Folks like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair get away with it for years before anything catches up to them. Brian Williams gets recycled from NBC to MSNBC. Fareed Zakaria gets to his own show on CNN as a reward for plagiarism.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by whell

Cow manure. Folks like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair get away with it for years before anything catches up to them. Brian Williams gets recycled from NBC to MSNBC. Fareed Zakaria gets to his own show on CNN as a reward for plagiarism.

The culture of ethics I refer to does exist in print journalism. Rarely, clever people evade the system, but the way the way the print journalism industry reacted when the problems were uncovered shows that corruption is not general, as you suggest.

TV news emulates the standards of print journalism, at best, imperfectly.

[d-ray657]

I should note here that the title of this thread is false and misleading. The nonsense presented by the OP is in no way a service of nor is it endorsed by Politicalchat.org. If the OP wants to flatter himself by saying that his posts are a service to Politicalchat, he can fantasize all he wants. But, I suppose it is asking too much to expect him to be honest about what he is offering.

[barbara]

I hope this is fake news....

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016...resident-elect


If it's true it really cheapens the office of the presidency.
And it's hard to tell what " charity" will benefit.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by barbara

I hope this is fake news....

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016...resident-elect


If it's true it really cheapens the office of the presidency.
And it's hard to tell what " charity" will benefit.

Another source, "The Hill" http://thehill.com/homenews/news/311...t-elect-report

Maybe they'll get to hunt with Dick 'Shotgun' Cheney?

[whell]

FAKE NEWS ALERT

From VOX: Monday's Electoral College results prove the institution is an utter joke

OK, so its probably an editorial, but with Vox its hard to tell the difference between what passes for news and what is meant to be an editorial.

What the story gets right: When Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, some liberals and activists had a cool-sounding idea. What if, they mused, they could in fact block his win through the Electoral College, which actually casts the ballots that will officially make Trump president?

But when the electors gathered across the country Monday, this plot backfired embarrassingly — more electors defected from Hillary Clinton than from Trump.

Yeah, that fiasco had to be embarrassing for some liberals. But its often hard to find lefties that have a sufficient sense of decency to be embarrassed by this.

What the story gets wrong: The record number of defections for the modern era — there hasn’t been more than one faithless elector in any one election in the past century — proves that the Electoral College isn’t a system that can be relied on to accurately reflect the will of voters in the states. And yet it also isn’t a system where electors feel completely free to make up their own minds.

What we actually have is a system in which the vast majority of electors vote in accordance with state outcomes — except for essentially random defections by little-known, idiosyncratic people who happen to have won elector slots. And that is a system that’s badly vulnerable to a very serious crisis.

No, there's nothing wrong with the system of using electors. Its actually quite brilliant. Now if hysterical leftists would quit trying to mess with it every time the system doesn't produce the results they prefer, we'd all be better off.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

FAKE NEWS ALERT

From VOX: Monday's Electoral College results prove the institution is an utter joke

OK, so its probably an editorial, but with Vox its hard to tell the difference between what passes for news and what is meant to be an editorial...

Yet another example of you not knowing what fake news is and isn't, not that we really needed any further confirmation of that.

[CarlV]

Not that we didn't already know this story was phony as a 3 dollar bill from the get go....

According to the newly released court papers, the FBI sought a search warrant two days after Comey's letter on Oct. 30 to review "thousands" of emails on a Toshiba laptop. Those emails, Comey said in his letter, were found in an "unrelated case."
Sources close to the investigation have said the emails were discovered during an unrelated probe into former Democratic U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
In an affidavit, an unnamed FBI agent said there was "probable cause" to believe that correspondence between Clinton and an unnamed individual whose name was redacted was located on the laptop, including emails with classified information.
While the affidavit provided no indication that any emails from Clinton or with classified information were actually found on the laptop when the search warrant was sought, it said emails to State Department accounts had been located.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/search-wa...18.html?ref=gs

Carl