At a press conference in Germany, President Obama highlighted a clear and present danger that is afflicting democracies where the freedom of information exchange created a fake news problem.
The danger of fake news
Democracies require an educated population that does not easily fall prey to the type of fake news that is rampant in America and throughout the world. America may have elected its first president based on a derelict media, fake news, and a population that is devolving into lazy thinking.
The President said the following at his press conference in Germany.
“Because in an age where there’s so much active misinformation, and it’s packaged very well, and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page, or you turn on your television, where some overzealousness on the part of a U.S. official is equated with constant and severe repression elsewhere,” President Obama said. “If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect. We won’t know what to fight for. And we can lose so much of what we’ve gained regarding the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and prosperity that we’ve come to take for granted.”
The solution is not simple. We cannot waiver on Democracy and freedom of information. We could pass laws that punish lies that do not infringe on our constitutional rights.
