Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 September 6

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September 6

Laws in USA and UK

I want to ask two questions:

In my country there are strict laws against posting fake information on social media as twitter and facebook which can create ethnic violence. Does such law exist in USA?

My second question is that, If BBC, New york Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, CNN allows biased writers and political activists to post their biased one-sided view on an ethnic conflict with a note that "views expressed by the writer are their own". And also these media organizations gives biased coverage to victims of religious and ethnic violence by giving coverage to victims of one community only. When the national and local media mentions victims from both communities, New york Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, CNN and BBC gives one sided coverage. Can anyone complain to any department of American and UK government by giving details and evidence of their long term bias? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allankepsojet (talk • contribs) 06:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

1. No, not as far as I know, but I am not a lawyer. But there is an important difference between inciting violence (which is illegal) and simply posting fake information (which is usually legal). There are restrictions on what you can say about a person though; see the article defamation.

2. Luckily the US and UK governments are not in charge of the press. Do you have freedom of speech and freedom of the press in your country? Which country are we talking about? The New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian and BBC are some of the most reliable sources of news in the English language. TV channels that give one-sided biased fake news, like for example Fox News, are legally allowed to do that. If you have enough money you can start a TV channel in the US that is dedicated to 24/7 fake news and propaganda without breaking any laws. You can also make a pro-Israel or pro-Palestina TV channel (or whatever side of another religious/ethnic conflict you can think of). In both the US and the UK the government has far less control over the press than you seem to believe. Poveglia (talk) 06:55, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes they are reliable. In my second question, I didn't say that New York Times, BBC, CNN, guardian, washingtonpost give fake news. I said they give biased coverage and posts opinion pieces which also shows bias. They will give huge coverage when people from "community X" will kill a person from "community Y", but they won't give coverage when people from "community Y" will kill people from "community X". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allankepsojet (talk • contribs) 07:25, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Fox News is a good example of an unreliable source of news that is biased. Being a biased news source is allowed. Even making up news stories (a.k.a. fake news) is allowed in both the UK and the US. The government has very little editorial control over the press except in extreme cases (for example an injunction could prevent a UK newspaper from publishing a certain fact). Poveglia (talk) 07:57, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

What you describe is, in the United States, free speech. There is no government agency you can report it to, and this is a deliberate feature of the American concept of free speech. See [1] and other articles on that site for examples of how governments abuse the ability to censor things they don't like. That sort of thing is why we don't have censors here. The times that the US slipped up (including Alien and Sedition Acts, Schenck v. United States), our own democratic, allegedly freedom-loving government, wound up punishing people for saying things the government didn't like.In fact, Justice Douglas' concurrence in Brandenburg v. Ohio specifically warns of how easily the power of censorship can be use by the government to crush even peaceful attempts to change the government. Even if such a power were implemented democratically, this is only inviting a tyranny of the majority where minority viewpoints are silenced. And at this point I conclude by pointing you to the concept of the Marketplace of ideas, which I will not try to summarize. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:35, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for making the Freedom Eagle cry but there are censors in the USA. Go ask the 2 Live Crew. They are the reason the reason why music has parental warning labels. Check out Banned_in_the_U.S.A. Poveglia (talk) 08:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

And that decision was overturned: As Nasty As They Wanna Be. Of course, what this means in a practical sense is that there are many lower courts that do not take the freedom of speech that seriously, and allow officials to do stuff like this. But as long as you have the money to hire a lawyer, or are lucky enough to get a good one to work for you pro bono, your freedom of speech is secure. Murica. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:21, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

...Unless you want to say something that someone else with even more money does not want you to say... Sadly most Americans aren't rich enough to get justice...

You wrote: "That sort of thing is why we don't have censors here." But you do, the albums were confiscated, the members of the group arrested, the owners of the recordstores arrested and the album was deemed obscene. I didn't say no one overturned that decision. Do you want more examples?

Of course there is an article about it. Censorship in the United States. Unfortunately it is quite a long article and it doesn't even contain the incident I mentioned above. Poveglia (talk) 09:23, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Reporters Without Borders makes a yearly Press Freedom Index, which is basically a list of countries ordered by freedom of the press. The United States is at #48 and my country is in the top 5. Poveglia (talk) 09:36, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Some points:

1) Opinion pieces are supposed to present just one side of an argument. Here the idea is that you read opinion pieces on both sides and make a decision for yourself. However, in recent years this last part has largely failed because now we have right-wing only and left-wing only news on the Internet, so people never see the opposing viewpoint. In the US, the fairness doctrine prevented this on TV for some time, but since that was dropped the same problem exists on TV.

2) Regarding fake news, yellow journalism was a problem a century ago, and then we hit a "golden age" where most news outlets tried their best to be fair and honest. That all seems to have fallen apart lately, though, as there are so many new "news" outlets which don't seem to care about ethics. Some of them aren't really journalists at all, but just people paid by the Russians or whomever to plant whatever story they want.

3) The legal means to challenge news stories here is lawsuits. That is, if information is presented which can be shown to cause damage to somebody, then they can be sued. It's not required that the news be proven to be fake (publishing that somebody keeps a million dollar stuffed in their mattress would be bad even if true), but that would certainly be a plus for the lawsuit. SinisterLefty (talk) 13:10, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

In a lawsuit, you have to prove that the information is both damaging and false. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

...but not beyond reasonable doubt. Just enough to sway opinion. Facts don't matter anymore, again.--TMCk (talk) 22:23, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Preponderance of evidence. That doesn't mean that "facts don't matter." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:51, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

That's only true of a libel lawsuit. Jenny Jones found out that broadcasting true but reckless info can get you in trouble, too. SinisterLefty (talk) 21:43, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Sure, though ultimately the suit against Jenny Jones came to naught. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

It was overturned, but not because the facts broadcast were true. SinisterLefty (talk) 23:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Right. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:05, 7 September 2019 (UTC)