Search Here

Fake news that are spreading on social media sites have greatly impacted the recent U.S. Election results. With the unprecedented victory of Donald Trump, German Social Democratic Party Chairman Thomas Oppermann has proposed a stern law that makes companies like Facebook responsible for any fake news gaining popularity on the platform. 

The proposed law will require Facebook to play an active role in filtering which news articles are true or not at all times. Failure to comply once this rule is passed within 24 hours will result in a penalty of €500,000, or roughly $522,575, for every fake Facebook post that gets published despite not passing the set criteria, according to Engadget.

Besides Facebook, other social media firms like Instagram and Twitter, are being asked to send a team to Germany to scan through news posts and distinguish between real or fake. 

Fortunately for Opperman, this push in penalizing media companies for circulating malicious content and misleading information has earned support from major German political parties. The Country's Christian Democratic Union, which Chancellor Angela Merkel is a part of, has been backing up this legislation as well. Merkel's political party is supposedly affected since she is vying to win her fourth presidential attempt. 

Merkel herself issued a statement of support through Senior MP Patrick Sensburg. The attempt to misinform the public with the purpose of destabilizing a state should be a criminal offense, she stated. 

Additionally, fake news posts have raised concern even more when rumors of a Russian attempt to undermine the Bundestag elections next year circulated. Moscow intelligence was allegedly involved in hacking instances during the Democratic National Convention, which included the huge leak of Hillary Clinton's emails to her aide, Forbes noted.

Even before Germany passes the legislation, Facebook has already put in place a new censorship model that can help monitor fake news.