Cheng 1

Kevin Cheng

Professor Colombo

UWRT 1104-007

16 March 2017

Introduction/Outline Draft

If all fake news does is create confusion and violence, then why is it still legal or not

controlled? Although it is protected by the First Amendment, fake news poses as a concerning

threat in todays society, due to the ease of spreading via the Internet. Around the world, events

such as near-shooting, hate crimes, and even a near-nuclear war has occurred as a reaction to

fake news. It is only a matter of time before a serious and deadly event occurs as a result of fake

news. Due to its negative impact, fake news should be banned or limited.

Claim 1: fake news has a negative impact.

Evidence:
o A man carried an assault rifle into a pizza shop to investigate a fake news story.
Police say that he came to the establishment to self-investigate Pizza Gate (a
fictitious online conspiracy theory). The man then cleared out the restaurant, in
which no one was hurt. The police later arrested him without incident.

o An article claiming that former Israeli Defense Minister Yaalon threatened to

destroy (Pakistan) with a nuclear attack, led Pakistani Defense Minister Asif to
respond with Israel forgets Pakistan is a Nuclear State too. Later on, Israel
cleared the confusion by saying the statements were false, to which Asif
responded with their nuclear program was deterrence to protect our freedom.

o A few professionals have agreed that fake news may have influenced the election
process. It has caused uncertainty, and/or people to support a candidate based on
fake news on the rival candidate.
Claim 2: many people and businesses disapprove of fake news.
Evidence:
o Apple CEO Tim Cook has claimed that fake news is killing peoples minds and
that tech companies need to launch a campaign. Cook has expressed that tech
companies have the tools to counter fake news, and offered a solution of a
massive public-service announcement campaign.

o Facebook and Google, who had an unintentional hand in spreading fake news,
have introduced new policies to combat fake news.
Facebook changed its Trending Topics section a part of social media
that some have blamed for spreading false information to promote
articles from reliable sources.
Google expanded a current policy to include sites impersonating news
organizations. They also reviewed 550 sites suspected of
misrepresenting content to users, including impersonating news
organizations, and took action against 340 of those sites, resulting in the
banning of over 200 publishers.

o Facebook has a plan to cut off fake news sites, and plans to label them. They also
plan to discourage creating fake news by helping to restore programmatic ad
revenue to legitimate publishers that have seen bogus sites siphon off marketing
dollars.

Claim 3: fake news spreads very easily nowadays.

Evidence:
o Angie Holan wrote, in 2016, most viral lies spread on Facebook. They were
reinforced by Google searches, in which stories from dubious sites jumped to the
top of your screen based on traffic. Although fake news spread mostly through
Facebook and Google, it was unintentional.

o The New York Times say Facebook and Google have been grappling with a
widespread backlash over how their sites may have spread rumors on a vast scale,
and how little responsibility they take for any of the content that appears on their
platforms. This quote implies that these two companies have unintentionally had
a hand in the spreading of fake news

Refutation: banning fake news violates Constitution

The potential dangers it poses is too great to ignore, plus there are other ways to limit it.