Why we must regulate social media and criminalize fake news — Part 2

When I started this article, I had a few questions and some provocative issues I wanted to present. However, as I started writing, and writing usually has a life of itself, it started to appear several other questions and issues I felt I had to address. As a result, the article became too long and it is now going to be published in three parts (“Anatomy of disinformation and fake news”, “How we made it to this point and the role of online platforms”, and “Why and how we should regulate social media and criminalize fake news”). Each part can be read independently, but to understand the whole and to connect all the ideas, you should read all three.

1. How we made it to this point and the role of online platforms

“Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse” by Sophocles. Displayed at the beginning of the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”, this quote truly represents the level of issues we find in social media and the way they operate. In this article, I am considering the political implications of fake news, its role in politics, and the effects on our social fabric. There are other issues related to social media just as or more important, but they are not part of this topic.

But let’s start from the beginning, how we perceive the world politically and how we identify with certain ideas. I will cite the work of George Lakoff, neuroscientist, who perfectly explains it in his article “Understanding Trump”, which you can access here, as well as in his book “The Political Mind” (Penguin Books). He says: “we tend to understand the nation metaphorically in family terms: We have founding fathers. We send our sons and daughters to war. We have homeland security. The conservative and progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different common forms of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative). What do social issues and the politics have to do with the family? We are first governed in our families, and so we grow up understanding governing institutions in terms of the governing systems of families.“ So, some people need a strict father, and some need a nurturant father, according to their prevalent moral worldviews and values, if they are conservative (the strict father) or progressive (the nurturant father). This explains why so many people so easily believe in…