Leveson and fake news

AMONG the most startling features of Lord Justice Leveson’s report on the Press was that it devoted a mere dozen of its 2,000 pages to the world’s fastest growing source of news, the internet. Apparently bewildered by new technology, he had no recommendations for regulating social media or nonnewspaper websites, concluding: ‘People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy, or carries any particular assurance or accuracy.’

In other words, he was arguing that the more unreliable, unfair and untruthful a news source might be, the less it needed policing – while newspapers striving to maintain a reputation for accuracy deserved a draconian crackdown!

Now even staff at the internet giants have made clear that, where Leveson saw no problem, they see acute dangers to democracy in the unregulated web. With Facebook rapidly becoming the primary source of information for its users (especially the young) – and outrageously fabricated stories blamed for influencing the US election result – its employees have taken it upon themselves to try to weed out ‘fake news’. Meanwhile, Google has announced it will refuse to place advertisements on pages that set out to deceive.

This paper is highly doubtful about how far these belated efforts will succeed (particularly since Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg refuses to acknowledge any serious cause for concern).

But one thing becomes clearer by the day. While the tech giants remain unanswerable for their output, and newspapers are crushed by the costs of regulation, the public will be increasingly vulnerable to online lies.

Is this to be Leveson’s legacy?