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UK Considers Forcing Social Media Firms To Prioritize Trusted News (reuters.com) 134

Posted by BeauHD from the pick-and-choose dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain is considering forcing social media companies to prioritize what the government called trusted news sources as part of its broader push to tighten regulation of the sector. The culture department said on Monday it was considering requiring platforms such as Meta's Facebook, Alphabet-owned YouTube and TikTok to make content from public service media -- including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 -- and other trusted news providers easier to find in users' feeds and searches.

Boosting the visibility of regulated news providers could help tackle misinformation, particularly during crises, the government said. However, any move to influence how platforms rank content is likely to face scrutiny from the social media firms, which say such rules could override user choice and disadvantage other creators. The proposals form part of a broader overhaul of Britain's public service media system to help broadcasters compete with streaming platforms and shifting viewing habits. Ministers are also considering widening public service media status to include online-only providers, extending free-to-air protections for major sporting events to on-demand viewing, and consulting on a shift to internet-based TV from 2034 or 2044. "It is vital that we make sure that people have better access to trusted and accurate news and that our regulated public service media is seen and heard in the fierce battle against mis- and disinformation," culture minister Lisa Nandy said in a statement.

The move follows the UK's recently-announced ban on social media use for those under 16.

UK Considers Forcing Social Media Firms To Prioritize Trusted News More | Reply

UK Considers Forcing Social Media Firms To Prioritize Trusted News

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  • Before someone says it (Score:5, Informative)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:06AM (#66205754) Homepage Journal

    I know what this looks like, the government wants to make sure you read its narrative on everything first.

    And I'm sure it will be abused for that.

    But there is actually another, more genuine, reason for wanting it. We have a huge problem with misinformation in the UK. Much of it coming from Russia, and the far right, and grifters. It's actually quite lucrative, and devastatingly effective.

    It's 10 years since the Brexit vote today. The amount of misinformation is hard to comprehend. Even today, people still believe those lies. Even back then, we were decades into debunking some of them. One of the biggest liars, Boris Johnson, transitioned from publishing lies in newspapers to telling lies as Prime Minister. Misinformation became the most effective political strategy.

    This probably isn't the right way to go about it, but I also find it hard to believe that e.g. Facebook can't label Russia trolls easily enough. Whenever information leaks from those sites, the fake Russian accounts are very easy to spot. Twitter had to remove their public location information because as soon as they enabled it everyone noticed that many of the top accounts were Russian, pretending to be European or American.

    • Re: Before someone says it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jockm ( 233372 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:09AM (#66205766) Homepage

      My problem is that there are a number of very trusted journalists who no longer work for those companies that are starting their own small operations. This will enforce disfavoring them, unless the UK government whitelists them

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        hardly. initiatives like this one mostly impact the lowest hanging fruit in the audience. which is indeed a huge portion, mind, and they might influence some voting here and there but not very relevant regarding the knowledge space and the public historcal record. that's actually improving. otoh the exodus of honest professionals from "established" media and their replacement with drones is just accelerating the long ongoing establishment's loss of traction. this is very obviously a desperate move in face o

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          There's no need for "journalists" now AI can do the job just as well.

    • Thanks for that. I was about to post a knee-jerk response about the fittingness of Orwell having been a Brit. And given some of the British government's excesses I've heard about over the past while - many of which sound disturbingly like thoughtcrime laws - I still think my reaction was appropriate. That said, I appreciate your reasonable counterpoint.

      It's a tough balance for governments to strike. Sadly, I think that the British government is starting to strongly favour a bit of totalitarianism - so much

      • Re:Before someone says it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by allo ( 1728082 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @12:14PM (#66205966)

        The problem is, that it still is a bad move even with good intentions. Just think about how to realize it and then how to enforce it. I don't see any option without serious side effects. Defining "social media" and defining "trusted news" alone is a huge issue.

        Would you consider Slashdot comments social media? What about the comments in some unimportant blog? Or what about blog authors themselves that are posting articles referring to each other without using the other blog's comment function? Does it change things, if the blog sends a track back or not?

        While this is hard to define, the discussion about "trusted" opens the gates to a hell of flamewars.

        When you're done with the definitions you need to think about enforcement, penalties, etc.. These things aren't straightforward either.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      Or just shit like this: https://www.wsj.com/business/m... [wsj.com]

    • Re:Before someone says it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:32AM (#66205858)

      Boris Johnson

      That's the thing though. The biggest source of misinformation in ol' Blighty is Nr.10. Whether it's Blair, May, Johnson, Starmer, whoever. The face doesn't matter. The bullshit remains the same. It wasn't Russian disinformation that made Brexit happen, it was Britains own Farage. And now Great Britain is on track to be the first un-developed country in the West.

      And this is where the West is at by now. The powers that be are at odds with truth, with their lies, incompetence, and corruption, so they redefine truth to mean whatever is convenient. 1984 was a field manual for them.

      You can bet your ass that to be trusted, a news source has to keep quiet about inconvenient topics such as Gaza, Epstein, and government corruption. And so it is trusted then means that the government can trust the media to not rock the boat.

      • Re: Before someone says it (Score:5, Interesting)

        by newcastlejon ( 1483695 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @12:35PM (#66206016)

        It wasn't Russian disinformation that made Brexit happen, it was Britains own Farage.

        Reform's leader in Wales was recently imprisoned [bbc.co.uk] for taking Russian bribes to push their talking points. Farage used to say the same kinds of things, and the only difference between Nathan Gill and Farage is that they could prove it. We do know, however, that he took five million from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire and that it's just a coincidence that Farage started promoting cryptocurrency shortly after. It's not an either/or situation.

      • That's the thing though. The biggest source of misinformation in ol' Blighty is Nr.10.

        I don't think that would matter in practice. This law wouldn't let them specify what *news* is allowed, only what news sources, and there would be a huge stink if they tried to block the major real news outlets. They'd like to, I'm sure, but I really doubt that they'd succeed.

        • there would be a huge stink if they tried to block the major real news outlets

          Depends on what you consider "block". For practical purposes, this is a done deal for quite some years now. For the amount of stink it created, look e.g. into how The Guardian was made to destroy their hard drives that had the Snowden files on them. No real stink came of it, but The Guardian was broken, and never stood up for principles again. In a similar vein during the last dozen years or so all of the mainstream media has been reworked, and now only parrots govt line without question.

          These days you can

          • That basically all of the people in the Western governments turned out to be raping minors and eating children

            There is zero evidence of this, and the fact that you seem to believe it makes me dismiss everything else you might say out of hand, because you clearly either lack or don't engage critical thinking skills.

            • Isn't it just mighty convenient that our press and leaders are working hard to keep the evidence from being released. I wonder why that is.

              But you can google pretty much any name, and there's an Epstein connection, if not good ol' island visits. And you can google pretty much any name, and find them not pushing for the release of the files, if not outright working to shut down the conversation.

              In this kind of a situation, I consider everyone not actively pushing for the release guilty until proven otherwise

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ukoda ( 537183 )
          The only way it could work fairly is by having an independent unbiased group making the determination on what was clearly misinformation. A big ask but maybe not impossible. For example here in New Zealand we have an independent body, The Representation Commission, that is not under direct control of politicians, set the electorate boundaries, based on statistics, to prevent gerrymandering. The same approach might work for determining misinformation.

          • The only way it could work fairly is by having an independent unbiased group making the determination on what was clearly misinformation.

            That would be ideal, but I don't think it's really necessary. Just keeping the list a subject of public debate is sufficient to prevent things from getting too skewed.

    • Twitter had to remove their public location information ...

      that location feature is still active. (it was only shortly disabled because of controversy).

      it's telling that you have consolidated this misconception and that from the many and wildly different causes of backlash (lack of accuracy, "impersonations" from all over the planet, rage and bait farmers, anonymous influencers and activists, ...) your memory only retained "russian" and "far right". disinformation is a very pervasive phenomenon and fucking everybody does it. i recommend you critically doublecheck y

    • There, nuf sed.

    • The problem is that we've read your body of work on this website and you would replace "misinformation" from the right-wing with "misinformation" from the left-wing... and we would be back to square one of trans muslims on the BBC saying how quantum physics helped form their sexual and gender identity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That's how they convince you that everything is false, except what they are telling you.

        In reality there are things that are true and widely agreed upon, and there are things that journalists can check before presenting. The classic example bendy bananas, if you want to look that one up. It was never true, in fact it was an example of how the UK had great influence in the EU, but the lie was used to justify leaving. The day after the voter, someone on a national TV debate show said that they were going to v

    • If you want to know what restriction to trusted sources looks like, look no further than Russia.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
      After ten years of Russiagate I have yet to see any Russian trolls loving on Putin in comments anywhere. Instead I see that anti-interventionists are called a russian troll because dissent against endless war is deemed inconceivable. Obviously the sort of disinformation churned out by the UK race rioters' darlings is not that which will be curtailed, it's Palestine Action and any other protest that they have declared illegal which will be puboic ememy #1
    • We saw this stupidity in full action with COVID, and it created problems for people trying to do their bit to educate people. At the time of peak pandemic, if you used a search engine, you would only get NHS or WHO results unless you started adding specific academic keywords which most people would not use. If you used YouTube, the results were further manipulated to always favour specific content by a handful of creators unless you explicitly wanted nutty content. The result was a massive distrust by a pub
    • It certainly can be a good way to go about it. If we enforce good governance around factualism, journalism, reporting and public speaking then we can at least make it very hard to tell lies and make it easier to expose them.

      Hate speech is not allowed in the UK. Why is telling outright lies allowed? Knowingly misinforming should be a close second and can be more dangerous.

      Many alternative outlets worked hard to undermine everything possible from"The Mainstream Media" why? Because they are held to broadca

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bongo ( 13261 )

      Ok, but propaganda is basically the problem and has been for over a hundred years. And it's everyone. Not just far right or Russia or today's bogeyman. It's everyone doing it.

      The antidote can't really be "curated information" because all the propagandists want to then be the curators. And that's what they do.

      The only real antidote is more dissemination, more distribution, more centralisation, more alternatives, and people just being exposed to all this stuff having to get smarter about integrating and compa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )

      This probably isn't the right way to go about it, but I also find it hard to believe that e.g. Facebook can't label Russia trolls easily enough.

      Putting aside the good intent of a government with questionable track record in this area, the issue of why big USA players don't address the issue is money and morals. They make more money by turn a blind eye to the issue of misinformation and pay lip service to the moral aspects. The USA has always had a very poor track record when it comes to allowing their corporations to do what every they want, regardless of the harm to society, and with current administration there is zero hope of anything improvin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I know what this looks like, the government wants to make sure you read its narrative on everything first.

      And I'm sure it will be abused for that.

      But there is actually another, more genuine, reason for wanting it. We have a huge problem with misinformation in the UK. Much of it coming from Russia, and the far right, and grifters. It's actually quite lucrative, and devastatingly effective.

      It's 10 years since the Brexit vote today. The amount of misinformation is hard to comprehend. Even today, people still believe those lies. Even back then, we were decades into debunking some of them. One of the biggest liars, Boris Johnson, transitioned from publishing lies in newspapers to telling lies as Prime Minister. Misinformation became the most effective political strategy.

      This probably isn't the right way to go about it, but I also find it hard to believe that e.g. Facebook can't label Russia trolls easily enough. Whenever information leaks from those sites, the fake Russian accounts are very easy to spot. Twitter had to remove their public location information because as soon as they enabled it everyone noticed that many of the top accounts were Russian, pretending to be European or American.

      Yep, we do need to address the disinformation crisis before we become as bad as the US where people blindly believe the most obvious of lies from Fox, Trump, et al. However this isn't really the way to go about it.

      I'm not concerned about the current government, I'm more concerned if someone authoritarian like Farage gets in, laws like this are tailor made to be abused by people like him.

  • Not a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:13AM (#66205774) Homepage

    Tinkering with social media is not a good idea. Current social media business models should be completely banned, for everyone.

    A social media platform should be forced to operate as follows:

    1. On the main timeline, it must only show content from people or groups that the user explicitly follows. The only way you should be shown content you don't follow is if you explicitly search for it.

    2. Content must be shown in reverse-chronological order, so when you see something you've seen before, you know you've also seen everything after it.

    3. Advertising and sponsored posts should be prohibited.

    4. The only acceptable way to raise revenue should be subscription fees. Facebook makes around $3 to $5/month per user; that would be an appropriate range of subscription fees. This would make bot armies economically infeasible.

    Regulating social media in this way would eliminate 95% of the harmful aspects. It's a simple matter of product safety regulation.

    • And if I may: 5. Providing sources should not go against the text limit, so people have no excuse for not backing up things they say as factors

    • 3. Advertising and sponsored posts should be prohibited.

      Not that I particularly enjoy seeing ads, but social media is not a unique situation when it comes to companies that run ads. Every more traditional form of media (print, radio, TV) has ads too. Obviously, it should be disclosed when you're looking at sponsored content, but otherwise I don't see anything wrong with the ad-sponsored business model. A lot of people aren't willing to spend a few bucks every month for Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), et al, and I personally don't want social media that's only

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        I don't see how they fly in the face of the First Amendment. Nobody is stopping anyone from posting anything on social media. We're just regulating the things social media forces users to see when they haven't asked for it.

        I would never dream of stopping someone from getting on a soapbox in a public square and saying whatever they want. But social media algorithms are the equivalent of dragging people off the street and making them listen to the speaker.

        The problem with allowing ads is that it encour

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          > We're just regulating the things social media forces users to see when they haven't asked for it.

          I don't want to see "trusted News" on social media and have deliberately not followed any of them. Apparently any Briton who feels the same way will now have it forced on them.

          My mother-in-law spends all day watching "trusted News", which is why she has absolutely no idea of what's going on in the world.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dskoll ( 99328 )

            Read my original comment, which said:

            1. On the main timeline, it must only show content from people or groups that the user explicitly follows. The only way you should be shown content you don't follow is if you explicitly search for it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by MpVpRb ( 1423381 )

      3. Advertising and sponsored posts should be clearly labelled and the user should be able to disable them

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      A social media platform should be forced to operate as follows:

      If a social media can be forced to operate in one way, then it can be forced to operate in any way. That is, if you get to dictate, then you only get to dictate while in power, and someone else will come into power and dictate something else.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        We regulate all kinds of products for consumer safety. I don't see why social media is special and shouldn't be regulated to reduce harm.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by sinij ( 911942 )
          You are not suggesting regulation for consumer safety. You are prescribing how these companies must run. The closest analog to what you suggest we have is utility regulations. I think your approach is not workable, bureaucracy regulating is too slow, too easy to capture to be effective. I think assigning liability for specific adverse events (e.g., social media addiction, etc.) and let companies run themselves is the only way to do this.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dskoll ( 99328 )

            Yes, I am prescribing how the companies must run because their very business model is inherently dangerous and harmful. The "engagement" business model has proven across multiple companies that it is inherently (and unfixably) damaging. We already regulate plenty of business models (eg, gambling.)

            I'm fine with assigning liability, but that's reactive. It's like saying: "Oh, we are not going to regulate power cables by requiring a UL stamp, but if you get a shock, feel free to sue the manufacturer."

    • 2. Content must be shown in reverse-chronological order,

      Yikes, no. Some people just post too much. I'd rather just let an algorithm lower the priority on parts of the firehose a bit. Otherwise it would just be a feed of whoever talks the most.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        If people post too much, you unfollow them. Back when I was on Facebook, that's what I did.

        • But I want to maintain friendships with people who would otherwise annoy me and at least keep up with the actual important stuff as verified algorithmically by other people interacting with it. And to be honest, most people would annoy me if I had to see the unedited feed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dskoll ( 99328 )

            Then you visit their profile once in a while. Or we add an option for changing the view away from strict reverse-chronological, but make sure that reverse-chronological is the default.

    • A social media platform should be forced to operate as follows:
      1. On the main timeline, it must only show content from people or groups that the user explicitly follows.

      This would strengthen the echo chamber effect, where people only hear things that reinforce what they already believe, and make it harder for voices correcting fake news to be heard.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Sure, but it enormously slows the spread of fake news outside the circle of friends.

        Many people start out reasonable, but get sucked into all kinds of wacko beliefs by sponsored or suggested posts.

    • If there are no ads, how do you pay for it? If you expect people to subscribe to social media, haha, yeah right. Ad views to provide me free access is entirely worth whatever tracking they may do.

      Ads don't hurt me (I block most anyway) where as literally charging me for access does.

      I will however pay a streaming service additional money to not show ads. Can you get a facebook/twitter/instagram/etc/ subscription and then see no ads? I don't actually use any of those sites, so I'm not really sure. If so, then

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        If there are no ads, how do you pay for it?

        Not my problem. If people aren't willing to pay subscription fees, then that's fine; social media platforms can die off.

        I would note that Mastodon follows all of my suggestions except the subscription fee part, and it seems to be doing OK.

        • I could be persuaded to your line of thinking but it's easy for me as someone that doesn't do social media, unless you count /. of course.

          I think a lot of people would be rather upset with that outcome and would definitely push back on the idea.

          It's not that your outline for how social media should work is bad (I think it's good actually) but given how society is already structured, it will be difficult to change this. Maybe all the lawsuits happening will help. We might get a tiny bit of what you suggest,

  • we should just keep the status quo and let social media companies pit everyone against each other with fake news.

  • Like Hell (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ozzymodus12 ( 8111534 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:19AM (#66205796)
    I think we live in an age where you can't really trust any "Trusted" news media. Bigger and older doesn't make it trusted. It just means the state and the media are holding hands together while they screw you.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      Bigger and older doesn't make it trusted.

      Exactly. How many mainstream news organizations reported on Biden's mental decline prior to his brains melting on live TV?

      • 100% right. These news outlets have their own markets they cater to. They aren't "trusted" by those that choose not to watch them, or ground their reporting against other sources and channels, so giving them preferential treatment is 100% censorship and should be utterly disgusting and reprehensible to any free democracy. Similarly, it should be completely rejected by all Slashdotters. The top comment which is equivocating and apologizing may be well intentioned, but when it comes to defending freedom of sp

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Depends on the country. While all media companies have some bias, some make a genuine effort to be neutral and factual. In the case of the UK the BBC does a good job in general and in other countries that follow that example are pretty trustworthy. Of course if you talk about media in the USA there are no major networks that I know of that are unbiased. At best some are somewhat trustworthy, and it goes rapidly down hill from there.

  • Good thought, but no way to execute safely (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:28AM (#66205830) Homepage

    I fully understand what they are going for. And I also think it would be a great idea. The issue I see is, who decides what is "trusted". The US is showing that it takes 1 asshole to get power to completely upend everything. When UK Trump gets elected and decides the only "trusted" news sites are the ones that report nice things about him, how do you stop that? At this point, everything has to consider what happens if a bad actor gets power because we can see how bad it can be.

  • The problem is gullibility (Score:3)

    by Mononymous ( 6156676 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:28AM (#66205832)

    The solution is not censorship.
    Free speech is too important to do this. The correct response to bad speech is good speech.
    The power of the state to silence its critics--even in part--is just too great a temptation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      There is no such word as gullible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )

      The correct response to bad speech is good speech.

      Until money is involved:

      Person: So what is the truth?
      Social media company: What do you want it to be, and what is your budget for that?

  • You're in good hands cuz the BBC doesnt have any bias and always gets the story right. So whats the harm? /s

  • Great idea in theory (Score:3)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:44AM (#66205886)

    In practice, if the government is in control, only news favorable to the government will be allowed

  • I'm basically forced to pay the bbc each month because opting out requires a lot of diligence and harassment. Technically even just visiting a news website might accidentally expose you to a "live tv" feed.
    • Have you actually checked the technical details, or are you just assuming whatever allows you to be maximally grumpy? The regulations specify equipment "used for the purpose of receiving" television, that doesn't sound like it covers equipment used for the purpose of reading some text from a news website which autoplays an unwanted live video stream because some idiots think that allowing browsers to autoplay video is a good idea.

    • I'm forced to pay for several commercial channels, whether I watch them or not.

      Those channels aren't a benevolent charity - they get paid by advertising agencies - who take a cut.

      The Agencies get paid by the advertisement makers -- who have their own production costs to cover, plus a profit margin.

      The advertisement makers get paid by the businesses who employ them (plus probably several consultants), who are also not charities and want to cover costs.

      The people paying for ALL of these costs are the end cust

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Budenny ( 888916 )

        The license fee is taxation tied to supporting one particular broadcaster. Its a government imposed tax on watching live TV from any broadcaster.

        If you want an analogy from the cases you cite, it would be if you had to pay a tax on every newspaper purchase, whose proceeds were handed on to the Guardian. And if it were a criminal offence to read any newspaper without paying this tax. Go into a library, and you cannot read the papers without producing a paid permit. Go into a newsagent, and you cannot buy

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hwstar ( 35834 )

      A yes, the TV licensing goons.

  • 1) This is the United Kingdom, not the USA. They do not have a First Amendment/ Freedom of Speech.

    2) The Internet is a liar and Social Media is their king. The idea of trying to fix the problem, if only in Social Media is very very appealing.

    3) There is a huge difference between regulating Social Media (aka "Gossip" sites) and regulating Newspapers, Magazines, Radio and Television. If only because Newspapers, Magazines, Radio and Television CAN be sued when they slander someone. Good luck suing some 12

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hwstar ( 35834 )

      One area where this shows up is that you can be fined in the UK for swearing at a police officer.

      Another area is libel: It is much easier to bring a suit for libel in the UK than it is in the United States.

      I'm coming to the conclusion that social media just ought to be highly regulated as it seems to be a significant factor in the extreme political polarization in both the UK and the USA.

      People used to socialize in person before they could use the Internet as a "facade of anonymity". People remembered your

  • open and clearly transparent but the right wouldn't trust the left and the left wouldn't trust the right and probally no one would trust any of them on most subjects , politics , the monachy etc,

  • Free press is a binary choice: either you have it, or you don't. If you want a free press, you have to leave it up to the individual to decide whom they are going to believe. Not every population is capable of that, and maybe UK's is not, in which case Parliament needs to be dissolved and the king should have the sole power to appoint the government.

  • Besides the news no longer being trustworthy in the first place ( US perspective, YMMV ) it really no longer
    qualifies as the " news " when, at best they have turned into sensationalist ( and very biased ) entertainment
    based on the political leanings of the medias owner. ( See CNN vs FOX for examples )

    At worst, they're simply the propaganda arm of the current political party in power.

    I quit watching / reading or even caring about the silliness that passes as the news years ago and I've been
    a much happier p

  • I've found it very frustrating to watch my parents among others open their browser, see whatever Google or Microsoft had dredged up, and then get dragged down into weird conspiracy theories.

    In my late dad's case, he became a rabid climate change denialist, presumably courtesy of the Koch Brothers. I could see the economic rational of the fossil fuel industry spreading disinformation of renewables. When my father would try to pass the crap the internet was feeding on to me, I would ask him what the "provenan

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Budenny ( 888916 )

      "the difference between a story originating from the Guardian or some Russian bot-farm..." But how much difference is there? The Guardian is just a bot farm staffed by humans following a party line. Or they have been humans, though increasingly it seems like they too may be largely bots.

      Yes, this is what the government has in mind. The Guardian, BBC and other certified righteous outfits would have to come at the top of searches. Other misinforming broadcasters like GBNews would come at the bottom with

  • UK should not be controlling the world's tech companies

    geo block that place and keep innovating

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