Emmanuel Macron: French president announces 'fake news' law - "We will develop our legal system to protect democracy from this fake news."

In many autocracies around the world, the original constitution was written to protect the people and to maintain order, and to help the nation prosper. But the same tools in the hands of a tyranny can just as easily be used to enforce control and censor.

I think Macron has missed the lesson in this; a law to prevent disinformation can just as easily be turned into a weapon in the hands of the wrong person. It might be unthinkable to France today, but in the scope of eternity, the unthinkable is an inevitability; a question of when not if it happens.

There's also the hazard that this may in fact fuel partisanship and drive a deeper wedge. When one side of the political spectrum keeps seeing their "news" blocked as "fake", that can be seen as an endorsement of it's validity, that "the enemy" doesn't want them to know "the truth".

Proper education and critical thinking are not only the best tools against disinformation, they're just straight up incredibly useful life skills in their own right; that is where they should start.

/r/worldnews Thread Link - bbc.com