Lewandowsky’s genius solution to Fake News — Ban it and do cheap smears!

Our old friend Stephan Lewandowsky has had a brain wave: h/t to Geoff Chambers and Barry Woods.

This Bristol academic thinks he has the solution to fake news

A Bristol professor has told MPs they have the power to put a stop to fake news appearing on Facebook and other social media platforms.

It is possible for a regulation or law to be passed that tells those IT giants how to behave,” said the cognitive scientist,…

Knock me over. Who would have thought of that – apart from every dictator and tyrant for the last 5,000 years?

His big new idea has been done before:

…libraries in the Soviet Union were repeatedly purged of all books deemed “harmful”. … between 1930 and 1932, libraries lost sixty percent more of their stock that was already purged at least three times.

So Lewandowsky has turned up to the UK Parliament to tell politicians what politicians have known since 3,000BC.

But his new job title is o-so-apt:

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, an expert in “misinformation” at Bristol University, said MPs could bring in laws to prevent anything that amounted to “hate speech” – a move already […]