Influence an election by creating fake information, by ruining other people’s reputation, invading their privacy, creating opinion tendencies through the massive spread of rumors, inciting violence, promoting hate, competing against another company through the fake comparison between products, creating an economic crisis with alarms that generate fearful reactions, presenting information, videos, pictures that have been modified to resemble something different from what reality looks like.
The history of mankind proves that this type of actions have always existed, but the current potential they have thanks to social media is astonishing. There are tons of examples that prove the influence that these actions have had on consumers, voters, discriminated groups, which also have originated fake conflicts and caused ruined reputations. This caused a healthy reaction in comparative law.
The problem is as worrying as the solution.
In 2001 I wrote a book about electronic commerce and, at the moment, the biggest issue was freedom of speech in the Internet, a space where every voice can be heard.
Little by little, new technologies appeared, profoundly transforming the system, which has an enormous capacity to control what happens in the digital world. In the last 3 years, debates regarding possible regulations started to arise and several laws were sanctioned in different countries, focused on different aspects.
There are laws that consider fake news as a crime such as in Malasia. They are broadly defined as “any news, information, data or report that is partially or totally fake…”
A different model, the German model, addresses the issue by demanding regulatory standards to the service suppliers that administrate the Internet platforms. Once the supplier receives a considerable amount of complaints regarding a fact, he must change it.
Furthermore, the deconstruction of lies and “counter truths” is an objective sought by some states in order to protect consumers in general as well as citizens in elections (France).
States tend to concentrate on a fact, the fake news, describing it in a very broad way that might lead to censorship if power is in the wrong totalitarian hands.
Then, they regulate the consequences. Many propose control organisms both for the previous or posterior stages as well as criminal and civil sanctions.
In this panorama, it is important to consider that the most effective norms are those which regulate the structure that originates the problem and not just isolated facts that emerge from that structure.
At this stage, an Internet institutional design is necessary so as to create incentives to orient the conducts towards values such as trust, truthfulness, honor, privacy, transparence in political processes and public conducts.
That implies directing efforts towards the role that different actors have:
• The great internet operators receive free information. They control it, spread it and receive money for it by selling data or hiring publicity. This has motivated an important debate about whether artists, journalists, traditional media can or cannot charge for their content. If that was the case, different contracts would be produced, previous to de spread of that content. The conditions would diminish the posterior risk.
• Public policies should take into account this subject because, many times, the State is the one who destines economic resources to spread information or to buy the so called “trolls”, naturalized in so many countries.
• Digital tech investments are key for us to know about what is being spread, to study the tendencies and to eliminate fake information.
• When information is questioned, it generates a counter effect: the information spreads. That is why control agreements are so good, like in Argentina’s case with the implementation of “Reverso”, instead of direct or indirect censorship.
• Preventive action against operators, those who have control over this systems, are also very valuable
The best path is to regulate the system so as to enhance what it produces, rather than censoring it or annulling it. Hence, the creation of preventive control systems in hands of the state can create major problems.
The wisdom in this topic consists in achieving a balance between freedom of speech and the prevention and sanction of illicit conducts.
Freedom of speech is a principle that has survived dictatorships, authoritarianism, hate speeches and discrimination.
A great deal of that strength is based on the credibility of the speech generated by a long list of people: professionals, journalists specialized in research and serious studied opinions, which can be risky due to the fact many have lost their lives in hands of the war or drug trafficking or by being censored or persecuted.
Is important to maintain coherence when talking about the principles that are being protected, both in the physical and digital world.