France targets ‘Fake news’ spreaders: Aims to pass law against it

Paris, January 4: “we will enact legislation in 2018 to combat the spread of "fake news," said President Emmanuel Macron while addressing to the French Press. During an annual message to the media, Macron said the legislation would be used especially during election periods and would largely target social media platforms, saying that if people wanted "to protect liberal democracies, we must have strong legislation."

Details of the bill related to fake news will be released in the coming weeks, he said, but he told reporters that media would be forced to reveal all sponsors of their content among other measures to boost transparency.

Judges will be able to order media to take down fake news, block access to offending websites, and close social media accounts that spread untruths, Macron said.

France's audiovisual regulator will see its powers boosted to better allow it to "fight any destabilization attempt by television channels controlled or influenced by foreign states", he added.

This would allow agreements allowing such channels to operate in France to be "suspended or cancelled", also taking into account the content they publish online, he said.

Macron saw thousands of internal documents leaked online while running for president, which he blasted as an attempt at "democratic destabilisation like that already seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign".

On Wednesday he said "thousands of propaganda accounts on social networks" were spreading "all over the world, in all languages, lies invented to tarnish political officials, personalities, public figures, journalists".