The picture is of the Travis Blue. Team Travis builds voice translation hardware. When someone is speaking, it can translate the speech into your language of choice. I am going to do a tech wiz review on this technology later! I read an interesting blog yesterday, one that made me stop and think about the impact of the world around me. The person, a long time journalist friend of mine, asked a very difficult question. Why she said, if the president of the United States believes that a news organization is published false or misleading information does he call it Fake News. Fake News represents something the president doesn’t like, butFake News isn’t actionable.
She asked a question that I have been pondering ever since. “Why doesn’t the president of the United States use the proper legal terminology to stop Fake News, and call it what it is “Libel.” She went on to detail the legal requirements for Libel versus Fake news. You see, anything published by anyone can be labeled fake news. There is no established legal standard for Fake News. There is, however, a legal standard for Libel. Even, if the president of the United States uses the word libel, there is a border of proof on him. She then finished her article with “when your kids tell you the dishes are done, and the sink is full of dishes, that is fake news. When your neighbor says publically that you stole money from them and you have proof you didn’t that is Libel. You see the burden of proof is critical. News agencies are sued for Libel frequently if they lose they pay money and publically apologize for the misinformation shared. Fake news is the biggest joke in the world.
Sad.
Anyone can join the fake news photo challenge. Just post a picture and share! Libel, on the other hand, gets you in legal hot water.