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Can Fake News Be Outlawed?

January 16, 2018

Macron signs a documentPHILIPPE WOJAZER/AFP/Getty Images

 

Can Fake News Be Outlawed?

French President Emmanuel Macron used the occasion of an annual New Year’s press conference this year to propose a new law to prevent the spread of disinformation online. But even if France’s restrictions work as intended, fake news is a global problem, and it will require a global solution.

PARIS – How can societies combat the stream of false, often fabricated information that surges across the Internet and through social media, polluting political debates almost everywhere?

That question has bedeviled defenders of democracy at least since the 2016 US presidential election. And at a New Year’s press conference outside the Élysée Palace this month, French President Emmanuel Macron offered his own answer.

Macron’s goal, it seems, is to curtail “fake news” by law. He is promising that, by the end of the year, he will introduce a bill to crack down on those spreading misinformation during any election period.

But France already has a repressive law banning the publication or broadcasting of disinformation in bad faith. Under Article 27 of the famous Press Law of 1881, disseminating false information “by whatever means” is punishable by a fine of up to €45,000 ($55,000) in today’s currency.

The Press Law, however, applies only to information that has “disturbed the public peace,” which can be very difficult to define, let alone prove. Another law, part of the electoral code, provides for punishment of one year in prison and a fine of €15,000 for anyone who uses false information “or other fraudulent maneuvers” to steal votes. But this provision applies primarily to cases of electoral fraud.

Macron’s challenge, then, is to craft legislation for the digital age. Although he didn’t explicitly say so in his recent speech, he is clearly targeting the kind of Russian interference that played a prominent role in the 2016 US presidential election, and also threatened his own presidential campaign last spring.

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