Are You Ready for a War on Fake News?

Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe asks, “Are you ready for a war on fake news?”

In his article he talks about how Facebook, Google, and Twitter are beginning efforts to clean up the fake news — the fake news that may have swung the election. But he reminds us that they could have done this earlier, although they might have ignored it because of all the money that was raised.

“Acting now, after the election, is a transparently political move by companies that could have cracked down on this stuff years ago. Instead, Facebook and Google earned big audiences and big dollars by selling ads on phony news sites that spread outrageous falsehoods. And Twitter barely flinched while some of its users terrorized others with abusive and threatening messages.”

Bray also warns us that taking things too far could mean censorship… It’s a really nice read.