France’s fake-news fight

Should fake news be outlawed? Could it be? It’s a delicate subject, and the myriad questions about whether such a thing is possible and what the consequences might be have a lot to do with how you define “fake news.” Many freedom-of-speech advocates are quick to declare such a bold legal step would be difficult to create and impossible to enforce, but that hasn’t stopped French President Emmanuel Macron from pursuing a new law that would ban dissemination of false information related to election campaigns.

France is one of many nations whose politics have been infected by foreign (read: Russian) mischiefmakers intent on influencing voters’ behaviour and altering the outcome of elections. A recent U.S. congressional report states there have been Russian-backed efforts to undermine electoral politics in 19 European countries since 2016.

In the case of France’s 2016 election, Macron’s campaign suffered a major hacking attack, though government officials were unable to definitively prove Russian involvement. The French president used his New Year’s news conference to announce he will proceed with anti-fake-news legislation. Among the first to object, not surprisingly, was RT. The head of its recently launched French-language channel said Mr. Macron’s effort “could be just the beginning of actually censoring freedom of speech,” and added, “We believe it is a very dangerous situation.”

A legislated restriction on false information distributed with nefarious political intent would be controversial, but the theoretical dangers foretold by naysayers must be balanced against the very real perils.

Of course, democracy-watchers are correct when they say limiting information has its slippery-slope dangers. Much depends on who does the banning, and what is actually being banned. There is, in fact, currently a democratically elected government whose “truth” agenda involves stifling legitimate news reporting in favour of an arms-length brand of pandering propaganda. There’s no small irony in the notion that the administration that claims to have coined the phrase “fake news” is the one least inclined to do anything about it.