The Fake Discussion

For a while, there's been slight hints by the intellectual folks, journalists and politicians in Germany....over this problem of fake news....mostly coming off of Facebook and social media.  When President Obama arrived to do his last final tour in Germany....this got onto the discussion topics between him and Chancellor Merkel.  Both share some 'fascination' with this and want some type of government control.

The problem is....once you start to mount some campaign here on fake stuff....where exactly do you start or end?

Fake news on Facebook?  What kind of fake news?  I read this morning that some Brit vigilante group put Breitbart News on such a list of fake news.  Drudge?  It also got put onto some fake news list.

Fake friends on Facebook?  Someone did a study.....worldwide, and came to conclude that sixty-plus million accounts on Facebook are fake.  Will some massive effort by the German authorities go after fake Facebook accounts or Twitter accounts which appear to be fake?

Fake politicians?  Some journalists will sit around and try to bluff their way through some argument that so-and-so is not a legitimate figure.  How will you confirm he's a fake SPD guy or a fake CDU gal?  Unknown.

There are various foundations and universities around Germany today, who go out on a weekly basis to expose another fake food claim, or fake soda nutritional value, or another fake calorie count (the bag will suggest two portions which amount to X number of calories....when it is 2.5 portions in reality).  Being healthy to consume or drink today....gets challenged constantly.

One group of Germans quietly go around to figure out who is claiming fake PhD status.  If you had some PhD from a university in Italy?  Well, it'd likely be challenged unless a judge stood up and just said it was ok, but that's after you spent a couple thousand Euro defending your "honor" in some German court.

So, will the Germans....via their press apparatus or PhD squad go after fake news?  I think they might be stupid enough to do it.  But I also think they might be just as stupid walk into a pretty deep trap set up by some clever folks and find that the fake-hunters....are fake themselves.  And if the public figures out that some great "hunt" fell upon the fake-hunters and they weren't legit?  Public confidence would go way down this drain.