Waste of tax money
Legislators are just wasting taxpayers’ money by wrangling about a fake news bill passage that won’t get anywhere, anyway.
The Senate came up with Bill 9, also known as An Act Prohibiting the Publication and Proliferation of False Content on the Philippine Internet, Providing Measures to Counteract its Effects and Prescribing Penalties Therefor.
The Anti-Fake News bill refers to any text, video, image, audio recording and animation posted on the Internet, but excludes newspaper reports or television and radio broadcasts unless published online.
Punishment for the publication and proliferation of false content by any person on the Internet will be a P1 million fine or imprisonment for the person, as well as the financier if an online activity publishes the false information.
Laws can be enacted by Congress and signed into law. But can they be enforced? We already have too many laws that are hardly enforceable, with even some budget law provisions, on account of claims of having no money for their enforcement.
Other laws, like this new Senate bill, will also be unenforceable, mainly because there are just too many, especially during the election campaign — official and unofficial — fake news items that proliferate, courtesy of politicians, their Internet PR, and, of course, their trolls, who, in earning quite a lot of money, spread a lot of disinformation on their political foes in their bid to destroy their rival’s chances of victory.
There is also, believe it or not, the new practice of some local executives who don’t really govern. Instead, they govern via video blogs, press releases picked up daily by various media and online news feeds, which must be costing millions.
Has one online fake news reporter or troll and other repeaters of fake news ever been identified?
What? A politician will fink on another politician when the probability is that both politicians have involved themselves in coming out with fake news and their trolls?
Earlier, Sen. Grace Poe filed a bill punishing government employees who share “fake news,” which sought the amendment of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. This bill would penalize those in government who publish or disseminate false news or information in any platform, all of which target public employees and officials.
Such a bill would hardly pass muster among public officials, since they would be the targets. Besides, the question remains: Would a politician fink at another politician, especially when both engage in fake information? Gee, and to think that a lot of them puff up themselves with a false image of themselves.
Another senator wants a fake news and fake information offender to pay a fine of P5 million.
Everyone seems to get into the fake news act, even when sometimes the information is not fake, but true. And who would be the first one to claim a particular item on a politician is fake, even when it is true, since a case can always be filed in court as cases of libel and cyber libel are now often filed by politicians, even when the cases are weak and should have been quickly dismissed by the fiscals in the first place and on to courts that continue to hear such cases?
There is also the problem of a fake news item usually appearing in online editions that may just be innocently repeated by an online news site. Does that online news site then get a million-peso fine and jail time? In much the same way, a print edition can come up inadvertently
“Everyone seems to get into the fake news act, even when sometimes the information is not fake, but true. And who would be the first one to claim a particular item on a politician is fake, even when it is true?
with false information, and be picked up by onliners. Do they get punished too?
How can this be proven even in court, when malicious intent is fairly difficult to prove?
Even in libel laws, malice has to be proved. What more when it comes to fake news, especially since the fake newsmakers are usually anonymous and come up with even more fake names and aliases?
Even Google, Twitter and others have a fairly difficult time checking on fake news and videos found to be too violent since such content can easily be sent and resent by other users and by the time they find the original fake news, videos and even spliced fake videos, these would have already made the rounds many times over. Would these repeaters of fake news — not knowing that the news was fake — also be meted the same penalty and fine?
In the final analysis, if and when a law is passed on fake news and false information online, this will eventually be challenged on its constitutionality, since the Constitution is very clear on the freedom of the press and of expression, among other freedoms and rights.
What should be done is for our politicians to drop the whole idea of enacting a fake news law — especially when at times, it is our politicians who, under the condition of anonymity, give news media false information, knowing that respected journalists will never fink on their sources, even when ordered by a judge to reveal the name of the source — and these politicians know it, which is why the spread of false information continues in the news media, print and online.
“Has one online fake news reporter or troll and other repeaters of fake news ever been identified?