California Considers Creating A Fake News Advisory Group
California Considers Creating A Fake News Advisory Group
June 25, 2018 at 11:44 am
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – California is considering creating a
“fake news” advisory group in order to monitor information posted and spread on
social media.
Senate Bill 1424 would require the California Attorney
General to create the advisory committee by April 1, 2019. It would need to
consist of at least one person from the Department of Justice, representatives
from social media providers, civil liberties advocates, and First Amendment
scholars.
The advisory group would be required to study how false
information is spread online and come up with a plan for social media platforms
to fix the problem. The Attorney General would then need to present that plan
to the Legislature by December 31, 2019. The group would also need to come up
with criteria establishing what is “fake news” versus what is inflammatory or
one-sided.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes the bill,
calling it “flawed” and “misguided.” The group argues the measure would make
the government and advisory group responsible for deciding what is true or
false. It also points out the First Amendment prevents content-based
restrictions, even if the statements of “admittedly false.”
A recent study by Massachusetts-based MindEdge Learning
was conducted with 1,000 young adults, ages 18 to 31-years-old. According to
MindEdge’s nine-question survey, 52 percent of the respondents incorrectly
answered at least four questions and received a failing grade. The number of
young adults who could detect false information on the internet went down by
all of the group’s measures. Only 19 percent of the college students and grads
scored an “A” by getting eight or nine questions correct. That number is down
from 24 percent in last year’s survey.
Facebook recently did away with its “Trending News”
section – calling it outdated and unpopular. That section was criticized in the
past after reports came out claiming the human editors were biased against
conservatives. After Facebook fired those editors, the algorithms it replaced
them with couldn’t always distinguish real news from fake.
After the 2016 election, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
denied that fake news spread on the social site he oversees influenced the
outcome- calling the idea “crazy.”
A previous bill, AB 155, would have required schools to
teach students the difference between “fake news” and “real news.” It died in
the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
The current bill SB 1424 was authored by Senator Dr.
Richard Pan. It passed the Senate on May 30, 2018 by a vote of 25-11. It will
be heard by the Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, tourism, and Internet
Media Committee on Tuesday.
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