{"id":346804,"date":"2018-02-04T18:08:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T17:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-europes-fake-news-crusade-to-protect-you-from-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2018-02-04T18:08:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T17:08:30","slug":"prison-planet-com-europes-fake-news-crusade-to-protect-you-from-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-europes-fake-news-crusade-to-protect-you-from-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison Planet.com \u00bb Europe\u2019s \u201cFake News\u201d Crusade to \u201cProtect\u201d You From Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>      <!-- START CONTENT --><\/p>\n<p><strong>Robbie Travers<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/11821\/fake-news-free-speech\"><br \/>The Gatestone Institute<\/a><br \/>February 2, 2018<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cIf liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,\u201d George Orwell wrote in his ant-totalitarian novel, <i>1984<\/i>. He would probably have frowned upon the latest UK Government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2018\/jan\/23\/new-national-security-unit-will-tackle-spread-of-fake-news-in-uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blueprint<\/a> to create a regulatory agency that will ultimately strangle freedom of expression.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Scrutiny against \u201cFake News,\u201d is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/10838\/sweden-fake-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">undoubtedly<\/a> a positive development.\u00a0 It means that <strong>at least people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/10108\/the-origin-of-fake-news-in-holocaust-denial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">questioning<\/a> the news they are consuming<\/strong>. Yes, it is a problem that so much disinformation and misinformation exists. It is, however, a far bigger problem if they do not. The public\u2019s resolve should be that disinformation is <i>not<\/i> combated by a regulatory body controlled by <i>Government<\/i>. Individual arguments, with evidence, is what belongs in a democracy, which can only survive if it is a marketplace of ideas.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>If having a Government body decide what can and cannot be published \u2013 thereby creating a culture of both official censorship and self-censorship \u2014 is not enough to concern you, the briefest glance at what this newly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2018\/jan\/23\/new-national-security-unit-will-tackle-spread-of-fake-news-in-uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">created<\/a> British body would consider \u201cFake News\u201d should send you running into the street.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/20180201_fake.jpg\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/20180201_fake.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"261\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"98f1fe71-2271-4cdb-a583-4c9a503d25b6\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>This new UK Government body would <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-42791218\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">deem<\/a> worthy of censorship \u201cSatire or parody which means no harm but can fool people\u201d. According to these geniuses, satire and parody are \u201cFake News.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Satire often relies on mixing believability and absurdity \u2014 not necessarily to fool people but to point out serious problems in a more approachable way. This can be done to draw people\u2019s attention to take a harder look at what they are consuming, or to make a wider political point humourously. The idea that satirical publications would be possibly removed and censored because people might believe them sounds disingenuous at best, and at worst autocratic.<\/p>\n<p>It is easy to see how Governments might be tempted to&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.prisonplanet.com\/europes-fake-news-crusade-to-protect-you-from-free-speech.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robbie TraversThe Gatestone InstituteFebruary 2, 2018 \u201cIf liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,\u201d George Orwell wrote in his ant-totalitarian novel, 1984. He would probably have frowned upon the latest UK Government blueprint to create a regulatory agency that will ultimately strangle freedom [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-346804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}