Beschouwing Engels Havo 5 – Should spreading fake news through
the internet be made punishable my law?
Fake news is a significant problem in today’s society, it is putting the reputation
image of people in danger. To be able to understand how big the impact of fake news
is, it is essential to understand what fake news actually is. In this essay, I would like
to help you find out whether spreading fake news should be illegal and thereby
punishable by law.
First of all, I would like to show you some of the favourable sides. By banning the
spread of fake news there are way fewer people who will get affected and potentially
harmed. For example, there are many medical-related fake news and misleading
stories going around. A recent example is of course news about the Covid-19
vaccine. American Journalist Craig Silverman even said: ‘’With big, breaking
worldwide news it will almost always result in misinformation online’’.
However, it is not illegal to spread news or information which you are as a person
convinced of that they are true. Not all opinions are purely based on facts, so most of
them are subjective and of course, this can’t get banned. In general, many people
can’t recognise the difference between real and fake news, therefore a law could be
quite useful. There is also a possibility that people will get angry about the law, they
might feel like the government is trying to take away their freedom of speech.
To conclude, the idea of totally banning fake news is quite unrealistic and hard to
enforce. On the one hand, it can be used to bring people in danger and hurt people in
other ways. On the other hand, it might create different views which are less likely to
get spread on for example, ‘’the big news’’. A trade-off must therefore be made
between both the positive and negatives.
the internet be made punishable my law?
Fake news is a significant problem in today’s society, it is putting the reputation
image of people in danger. To be able to understand how big the impact of fake news
is, it is essential to understand what fake news actually is. In this essay, I would like
to help you find out whether spreading fake news should be illegal and thereby
punishable by law.
First of all, I would like to show you some of the favourable sides. By banning the
spread of fake news there are way fewer people who will get affected and potentially
harmed. For example, there are many medical-related fake news and misleading
stories going around. A recent example is of course news about the Covid-19
vaccine. American Journalist Craig Silverman even said: ‘’With big, breaking
worldwide news it will almost always result in misinformation online’’.
However, it is not illegal to spread news or information which you are as a person
convinced of that they are true. Not all opinions are purely based on facts, so most of
them are subjective and of course, this can’t get banned. In general, many people
can’t recognise the difference between real and fake news, therefore a law could be
quite useful. There is also a possibility that people will get angry about the law, they
might feel like the government is trying to take away their freedom of speech.
To conclude, the idea of totally banning fake news is quite unrealistic and hard to
enforce. On the one hand, it can be used to bring people in danger and hurt people in
other ways. On the other hand, it might create different views which are less likely to
get spread on for example, ‘’the big news’’. A trade-off must therefore be made
between both the positive and negatives.
