In the European Union can adopt legislation aimed at the fight with fake news in social networks. This initiative was made by the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, reports Deutsche Welle.
A similar proposal was made by the Minister of justice of Germany Heiko Maas.
In a separate press interview, both officials discussed plans for the development of laws prohibiting social platforms to spread the fabricated stories under the guise of real news. It is noted that these situations hurt both democracy in General and the rights of individual citizens.
"We need a systemic framework", — said Maas in comments to the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
Martin Schulz has proposed a more specific plan and noted that the struggle should be conducted not only at national but also at European level. The head of the European Parliament proposed to install Facebook for 24 hours for detection and removal of fake news and malicious bots. If this is not done on time, the company will face a fine.
According to the head of the faction of the social Democrats in the Bundestag, Thomas Opperman, the amount of the fine shall be 500 thousand euros.
In 2017 to be held in Germany the next parliamentary elections. Local authorities concerned about the possible impact of the false news on the opinions of voters.
Recall that the problem of fake news has received a wide resonance after the presidential elections in the United States. There are opinions that the dissemination of false information in social networks has had an impact on the outcome of the vote.
Last week Facebook announced about the launch of a new mechanism for combating fake news. He suggests checking publications for accuracy by independent organizations. How successful will be adopted by the company the measures, time will tell.
