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Merkel Wants Facebook to Enforce Leftist Propaganda Machine
Germany is said to be considering fines of up to $500,000 Euros against Facebook should they not remove so-called “fake news” from their site within 24 hours.
The political party of Angela Merkel is behind the new initiative because – they claim – that they are worried about Russian interference in their upcoming 2017 federal elections in which Angela Merkel has announced that she will run for Chancellor once again.
However, she and her leftist Christian Democrat Union face a huge headwind of rising populism dedicated to ending the migrant invasion – especially in light of the recent truck massacre in Berlin.
So what’s going on here is Merkel is getting Facebook head, Mark Zuckerberg to run interference for her with Facebook moving into the role of international propaganda minister.
Should Facebook not implement “fake-news” detection services sufficient to detect and remove all fake news from its pages within 24 hours, then they will get a fine of up to $500,000 Euros.
Who determines this? Merkel, of course.
This is THE most dangerous attack on freedom of the press at the international level in my lifetime.
Facebook takes the political heat off of Merkel. Otherwise, Merkel would have to be seen as suppressing all news in Germany with which she disagrees.
And trust me, by the time her election comes up in the fall of 2017, the German people are going to be boiling with anti-Merkel rhetoric. But if Merkel was seen as suppressing it, that would be way too reminiscent of the Hitler propaganda machine. So, the simple answer is to make Zuckerberg and Facebook do it.
This is just the latest in a disturbing wave of anti-fake news suggestions specifically tailored to suppress only pro-populist news sites – such as this one. It was the fake news of the MSM that gave us the opportunity to proliferate as a naturel reaction to the MSM.
I have been on the front lines of seeing this fake news situation develop. It came in two forms. The major form was the fake news coming over the television channels. Gone are the days of careful reportage – moderate and even-handed.
But the worst of it was the stories deliberately designed to fake out smaller operations – like this one – with stories that sounded correct, but contained poison pills that if swallowed could easily be exploited to make the populist/nationalist news sites look stupid or amateurish.
These stories were not the work of amateurs, but propaganda professionals. There would be no incentive to go to that much work to make up a story which would have only a brief incendiary life in the spotlight before proven fake.
It is dangerous to have the government decide what news is fit to print. If anything needs to be hands off to government it is control of the news thru government censorship. That’s the most essential pillar upon which dictatorships are built. That’s why freedom of the press comes in the 1st Amendment to our Constitution.
Merkel’s real motive here is to “force” Facebook to do her dirty work for them – a sort of censorship by proxy. This is just a trial balloon to see if anyone calls it out for what it is.
The right solution for freedom-loving governance is to let we, the people, work this out organically. We don’t need a government ministry of propaganda to help us out.
In
Bill Still is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and has also produced the syndicated radio program, Health News. He has written 22 books and two documentary videos and is the host of his wildly popular daily YouTube Channel the “Still Report”, the quintessential report on the economy and Washington.
Merkel Wants Facebook to Enforce Leftist Propaganda Machine
Germany is said to be considering fines of up to $500,000 Euros against Facebook should they not remove so-called “fake news” from their site within 24 hours.
The political party of Angela Merkel is behind the new initiative because – they claim – that they are worried about Russian interference in their upcoming 2017 federal elections in which Angela Merkel has announced that she will run for Chancellor once again.
However, she and her leftist Christian Democrat Union face a huge headwind of rising populism dedicated to ending the migrant invasion – especially in light of the recent truck massacre in Berlin.
So what’s going on here is Merkel is getting Facebook head, Mark Zuckerberg to run interference for her with Facebook moving into the role of international propaganda minister.
Should Facebook not implement “fake-news” detection services sufficient to detect and remove all fake news from its pages within 24 hours, then they will get a fine of up to $500,000 Euros.
Who determines this? Merkel, of course.
This is THE most dangerous attack on freedom of the press at the international level in my lifetime.
Facebook takes the political heat off of Merkel. Otherwise, Merkel would have to be seen as suppressing all news in Germany with which she disagrees.
And trust me, by the time her election comes up in the fall of 2017, the German people are going to be boiling with anti-Merkel rhetoric. But if Merkel was seen as suppressing it, that would be way too reminiscent of the Hitler propaganda machine. So, the simple answer is to make Zuckerberg and Facebook do it.
This is just the latest in a disturbing wave of anti-fake news suggestions specifically tailored to suppress only pro-populist news sites – such as this one. It was the fake news of the MSM that gave us the opportunity to proliferate as a naturel reaction to the MSM.
I have been on the front lines of seeing this fake news situation develop. It came in two forms. The major form was the fake news coming over the television channels. Gone are the days of careful reportage – moderate and even-handed.
But the worst of it was the stories deliberately designed to fake out smaller operations – like this one – with stories that sounded correct, but contained poison pills that if swallowed could easily be exploited to make the populist/nationalist news sites look stupid or amateurish.
These stories were not the work of amateurs, but propaganda professionals. There would be no incentive to go to that much work to make up a story which would have only a brief incendiary life in the spotlight before proven fake.
It is dangerous to have the government decide what news is fit to print. If anything needs to be hands off to government it is control of the news thru government censorship. That’s the most essential pillar upon which dictatorships are built. That’s why freedom of the press comes in the 1st Amendment to our Constitution.
Merkel’s real motive here is to “force” Facebook to do her dirty work for them – a sort of censorship by proxy. This is just a trial balloon to see if anyone calls it out for what it is.
The right solution for freedom-loving governance is to let we, the people, work this out organically. We don’t need a government ministry of propaganda to help us out.
In
Bill Still is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and has also produced the syndicated radio program, Health News. He has written 22 books and two documentary videos and is the host of his wildly popular daily YouTube Channel the “Still Report”, the quintessential report on the economy and Washington.
