Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – President Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel have jointly blamed the disruptive influence of the Internet for their political losses, and have demanded more government control of emerging technology.
Obama and Angela Merkel Blame Internet and Social Media for Disrupting Globalism
President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are blaming the internet for disrupting the forces of globalism, suggesting that technology is making it more difficult to unite people behind a common purpose.
“Because of the internet and communications, the clash of cultures is much more direct,” Obama said during a press conference on his trip to Berlin. “People feel, I think, less certain about their identity. Less certain about economic security.”
Obama predicted that the rise of technology needed to be managed to give world citizens more control, beyond the simplistic answers found online.
His German counterpart agreed.
“Digitization is a disruptive force, a disruptive technological force that brings about deep-seated change, transformation of a society,” Merkel added.
She compared the internet to the invention of the printing press, citing the consequences it had on industrialized countries.
“It took a while until societies learned how to find the right kind of policies to contain this and to manage and steer this,” she said.
…
President Obama didn’t used to worry so much about the internet, back in the days when the internet helped Obama win office.
To his credit Obama also spent a fair part of his speech emphasising the importance of elections having integrity, of citizens being able to replace a government which was doing an unsatisfactory job – a right which has grown rather tenuous under the auspices of the authoritarian undemocratic European Union.
Why is this criticism of internet freedom relevant to WUWT?
Imagine if Climategate had occurred in the 1990s, or even the 1980s. Would we have ever heard about it? Most Mainstream Media didn’t start to cover Climategate until they had their noses rubbed in it, by rising awareness on non traditional news outlets.
Thanks to the Internet, the power to judge is placed into the hands of the people – even the Communist Chinese with their vast teams of internet censors have trouble controlling the flow of information.
Sure a lot of the information purveyed on the internet is nonsense – but the mainstream media also purveys a lot of nonsense. I have never seen compelling evidence that well paid mainstream media journalists are more careful about vetting the stories they publish than dedicated volunteers.
With unfiltered information from the internet at our fingertips, we have an opportunity to learn what is really happening in the world, beyond the control and social management of politicians like the Obamas and Merkels of the world.
To me, this unprecedented access to raw information is a freedom worth protecting. Because this window of freedom will potentially slam shut in the very near future, as the rise of artificial intelligence makes it increasingly possible to clamp down on the flow of information presented on the internet. For example, the climate fanatics at Google are working very hard on trying to filter search results according to their view of what constitutes the “truth”.
The following is the clip of President Obama and Merkel discussing the challenges posed by the Internet. The full original press conference is available here.
“The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. ” – Robert A. Heinlein
The populist uprising is composed of people who don’t want to be controlled, and who don’t want to control others.
The would-be controllers are the collective enemy of all free societies.
“The populist uprising is composed of people who don’t want to be controlled, and who don’t want to control others.”
—————–
As opposed to the current rioting and protests in US streets, which are essentially calls for limiting political discourse, though it’s doubtful that few of the masked dimwit perpe(traitor)s have taken their thinking that far.
How do you reconcile not wanting to control others, with wanting to be able to tell others which countries they are permitted to buy stuff from?
No need to. No one is proposing an embargo of trading with another country. OTOH, many of those ousted from government were trying to dictate WHAT we purchase from others, like health care.
This opinion piece is total spin. Obama did not say or imply government should “control’ the internet. Please stick to climate itself, not fantasy.
Believe what you want, but one might suggest that you try opening your eyes first.
So you think “private” monopolies should be able to control what is allowed to be said on the internet and that is better?
There is no such thing as a “private monopoly”. All monopolies need the police power of government in order to protect their monopolies.
When Microsoft had a monopoly on desktop operating systems, there was no government police power that protecting it.
They never had a monopoly. Apple was always there (and Linux).
Microsoft never had a monopoly, not even close.
There were always options for those who asked for it. And millions did.
markw
What about Rockefeller, Carnegie, AT&T, Comcast, etc. Sure they need government looking the other way but that is far from using the police power to force people to use them. Monopolies control a market and Microsoft did for PC operating systems.
YOu need to learn about the companies you quote. AT&T and Comcast achieved their dominance through government restrictions. Standard Oil may have gotten that way through inaction (smart investing), but it could not STAY that way without government assistance.
None of those examples ever came close to a monopoly either.
Microsoft never controlled the market for desktops. There was always Apple as well as a number of other competitors.
BTW, AT&T was a monopoly. It was a monopoly because the government passed a law saying that it was the only company allowed to do what it was doing.
It’s not that they need the government to look the other way. It’s impossible for a private company to form a monopoly. What they need is the active help of the government.
I realize that I should have edited my first sentence to exclude AT&T after I posted. I remembered the AT&T/government connection when I was half way through the post. Sorry about that.
MarkW says: “Microsoft never had a monopoly, not even close.”
..
Federal judges are smarter than you: https://www.cnet.com/news/judge-calls-microsoft-a-monopoly/
PS MarkW, it was the “police power of the government” (prosecutors) that brought suit in United States v. Microsoft Corporation 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001)
GallumpingDromedary, I love it when you socialists actually believe that judges are the last word on economic questions.
Try dealing with reality, not with what some ignorant judge egged on by even more ignorant attorneys, using a law that had nothing to do with the subject at hand, had to say.
There were and are many viable competitors to Microsoft, by definition it couldn’t be a monopoly. A group of politicians who were paid off by those who find buying politicians easier than actually fighting for market share passed a law that has no basis in reality.
MarkW says: “Try dealing with reality” …OK, the reality is that judges and attorneys are a lot smarter than you are. Keep in mind MicroSoft had to settle the case by opening up their API’s. What is more important is the MicroSoft was able to establish their “monopoly” without needing the police power of government. In fact it was the police power of government that put a stop to them contrary to your claim that government police power “protects” a monopoly.
Really? You mean MS has NO Patents? And they never took any other company to court over them?
LOL! I would say that MarkW is a lot smarter than you think, and you have no basis to say any judge is smarter. Other than bigotry.
“contrary to your claim that government police power “protects” a monopoly.”
Microsoft only had what power it did because of software copyright.
Hey, guess what software copyright is? Whoah, you got it… A GOVERNMENT-GRANTED MONOPOLY.
If there’s one thing governments love, it’s first creating a problem, and then coming in to offer the ‘solution’ to that problem, which is always to give more money and power to the government that created it in the first place.
Bingo!
philjordan…..the “government” does not enforce patents. Patents are enforced by civil lawsuits. This case was about monopoly not about patents. So, your statement about “smarter” is suspect. Secondly, the judge made a determination based on evidence presented, so another strike against MarkW.
..
MarkG makes the same mistake.
Galloping – it is a “civil” case, however there is no case if the “government” has not created the laws to make the case. So yes, the government does enforce them by the laws they make (they merely assess civil penalties instead of criminal ones).
Monopolies are created by the government and then regulated by the same beast that created them.
If a patent isn’t a state granted monopoly, was is it?
Who gives power to the civil courts?
What if someone wants to ignore the civil courts?
Do you get the difference the civil courts and arbitration associations?
Yea right, he just wants to control the information on the internet. He didn’t say anything about controlling the internet itself.
The UN should control the internet, that is what he “said” when he handed control over to the World Government known as the UN. I think that comes out to “it should be controlled by the world governments”.
Germany is reportedly already censoring the internet, as are all countries that allowed in invaders from the Middle East. It keeps people from knowing what is going on and creating any resistance.
Since both leaders are communists at heart, this is not likely untrue.
Obama: “I have confidence that over the long term ….”
I’ve been studying the phenomenon of the internet revolution – obviously with particular interest in its manifestation in Climate, but also with regard to Brexit, Trump, UKIP, etc. … I’ve got no confidence in the long term!!! So Obama is a complete fool if he has.
It is fairly easy to understand how the power shift from establishment elites to individuals will have profound effects on society: article link, however, it is very difficult to predict how societies will respond to such a profound change in their dynamics.
To that end, I should point out that ISIS, as well as Trump as well as the sceptic movement, UKIP, even in Scotland the disgusting SNP …. they are all part of this change in society away from the previous establishment elites.
In some cases, the change is good (sceptics) in others, pretty harmless (SNP) but some like ISIS are disgusting. I’ve no idea how to assess which types of revolution will predominate.
What we can predict with confidence, is change and revolution – probably far far more extensive than any of us can imagine. It won’t merely be a change of president. The last time we had such a dramatic change was the invention of printing. That led to the loss of power of the Catholic church, the rise of protestantism, arguably the industrial revolution and the bloody overthrow of monarchies. My big concern, is that whilst the printing revolution took hundreds of years to take effect … the internet revolution could take a few decades.
Therefore there is a huge potential for enormous, and potentially very bloody change. On the other hand, there is also potential for beneficial revolutions. What I don’t think anyone can predict with any confidence, is where we go from here. Whether we descend into a bloody bloodbath of anarchy, or whether (after the initial downfall of establishment elites) we see almost nothing but benefits.
However, maybe Obama’s got a crystal ball?
They’ll always find excuses and a culprit for everything but their own inability.
God forbid the peons have any information that is not government approved.
No wonder these guys are envious of the Chinese dictators.
This is not the first time that Obama has attacked technology as bad. He did blame ATMs for hindering his wondrous “recovery” that never materialized.
I guess his legacy will be a Luddite.
Remember what Winston Smith’s job was in “1984”? Control of information has been a goal of authoritatarians for a long time. For that matter, Martin Luther took advantage of a then new technology, the printing press, to spread his political/religious message. Wanting to impose a “nihil obstat” on all reporting is a common goal.
A fair nimber of American leftists have expressed admiration for the current Chinese government for being able to “get things done”. Bill Clinton’s allies in the old media were doing a fair job at supressing the Lewinsky scandaly before Drudge made it impractical in what was the relatively early days of the Internet.
Consider the press in the US about “fake news” having such a dread effect (Hillary lost!). All I think that can be done is to press on, and actually think about what you read.
So now the, what, 40-year-old Internet is “emerging technology?”
What career politicians really mean is this is “an emergency” that threatens their power.
Excellent Article Eric …. you should get it posted in the NYT!!
However, you need to add a line. The internet has made it such that deceptive political movements, such as that of the far left and the DNC and RNC, can no longer obfuscate the truth by censoring pertinent information.
Obama is correct … the internet played a huge role in Hill’s defeat, and will be the basis of his own legacy’s defeat. Due to the information on the internet, the people began to make up their own minds what was truth, and what was a lie. As Stossell notes, crowd sourcing is usually pretty accurate, because it takes into account such a larger body in information.
To be totally frank: Obama and Merkel must find it incredibly difficult to understand politics where many people have given up trying to be heard by the biased media.
20 years ago, if you felt strongly about a subject, the only way you’d get heard is by writing 100 letters to the press – and hoping one would get published. And as a result, whilst the press didn’t like some views, they heard they existed and even sometimes published them.
Then along comes the internet, and instead of spending an hour writing a letter, I spend an hour writing a dozen comments to various blogs. You and me we’re hearing what the public thinks about global warming. But those idiots in the media – they’re not getting in anywhere near the number of letters, they aren’t being hassled by sceptics and when they publish their biased views as “science” … they’re not getting anywhere near the number of complaints they would have got 20 years ago.
So, paradoxically, from being in the centre of public debate and hearing the diversity of views, now with the internet, journalists are some of the most out of touch people on the planet.
And as many politicians still rely on what they read in the broadcast media – they in turn are even more out of touch with the public views on a whole range of issues which are not popular with journalists.
Because journalists were biased – we moved online – so they stopped hearing from us – so they then imagined that what they saw on the internet represented a small group of delusional people, rather than the vast bulk of public opinion.
Excellent point! Consider the impact of Facebook, however !.6 Billion subscribers (almost 1/4 of the planet’s population), requiring in excess of 500,000 computer servers to manage traffic and I have yet to see anything of value emerge from it. The exact opposite in fact – gazillions of useless human orifical emissions.
I worked with a guy in Florida (we are both technologists) and were/are socially connected for years also (college football, BBQing, Wine to name a few commonalities). He frequently cheated on his wife and had several “Swinger” Yahoo profiles. He lived a double-life. Their pre-teen daughters were oblivious. I was aware of much of his public and private life – a significant portion of which was disturbing.
Facebook arrived and naturally this guy was all over it like an alcoholic over cheap vodka. The Facebook persona he established paints him as a virtual Saint and only those who know him as I do are aware of his reality. He has a significant Facebook following, including his 2 daughters now in College and they generally respond to his publishings with resounding choruses of Hosannas, while I feel the urge to vomit. I suspect this example is not atypical of today’s society. Funny thing is the guy has some redeeming qualities, thus explaining why I haven’t completely disowned him.
Similarly with Barry Soetoro (aka B.H Obama). A congenital liar with the public facing personality to persuade the masses to ignore the truth and reality.
What Obama actually spoke out against was fake news sites…
https://www.cnet.com/news/president-obama-hits-out-at-facebook-for-eroding-democracy/
If you put out a news story which gets picked up by facebook etc users you can earn a tiny bit of money from clicks… so some people now construct completely fake stories designed to appeal to (say) Trump supporters and make a living out of this e.g. in Macedonia… this happens mostly where a few hundred dollars is real money. But it is not not always in far flung parts:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/
Leftists define anything they disagree with as fake.
Under these type of guidelines, Drudge would have been banned because he picked up stories that the MSM wanted concealed.
For how many months were the big media groups telling us that the Hillary private server story was completely fake. Until they were forced to admit that it wasn’t.
Under your rules, they never would have been forced to admit the truth, because everyone who repeated a story the government declared to be fake, would be shut down.
WHO is the angel to be given the power to declare which ones are “fake”?
Government of course.
“so some people now construct completely fake stories designed to appeal to (say) Trump supporters and make a living out of this”
As compared some other people paid by George Soros to construct completely fake stories designed to appeal to (say) Hillary supporters.
Or declare that stories that are embarrassing to the government’s candidate are fake, even when they are actually true.
Mmmm. No, Grift. That’s his rationalization he’s putting forward to justify censorship.
Of course, you know that. And so does the Washington Post.
<a href="Report on Scourge of Fake News Turns Out to Be Faked
Report on Scourge of Fake News Turns Out to Be Fake
Fake news sites, like those saying “Trump wants China to bomb North Korea”? Like those “Trump admits paying no taxes what-so-ever”? Like those “Trump says he cheated on federal taxes”? Like “Trump has a server making suspicious DNS requests, proves a secret link with a Russian bank”? (actually, a mass mailer sending Trump estate ads to the SMTP servers around the world)
We have those in France; we too call them “the press”.
Freedom of the internet should be be the subject of a constitutional addition to free speech. That the left has no shame in even voicing this totalitarian idea shows how far it has gone. Basically they are saying ‘we had them bamboozled and their education all but destroyed, but that damned internet did an end run around our collective plans for the world.
Absolutely. The Internet is a great thing as long as it allows us to spread our propaganda. It is absolutely horrible because it may be also used to spread the truth .. truth? Of course not. WE determine what is the truth.
Think about how many home school web sites will disappear because they have “fake” things in their curriculum.
Literally saying that in some cases: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599
“we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly.”
“give world citizens more control”. Think about that one for a bit, it will give you nightmares.
The socialists of the world, to include Merkel and Obama, seem to believe that “world citizens” agree with them. It is actually narrow personal, tribal and national interests that predominate. Adults need to hear from all of them; not from just the socialist-approved sources.
In free societies, truth eventually wins out; maybe just not as fast as one would like. Lies perpetuate where “citizens” have more control.
At the Global Greens Conference in Dakar, Senegal Africa, 1 April 2012, Australian senator and Australian Greens Party leader Bob Brown advocated that there be established a “global parliament” where “every citizen should have an equal say”.
When he resigned he made a speech about aliens visiting.
Obama has always been a great speaker, you’ve gota give him that. Where trump shoots from the hip, Obama takes careful aim. But he’s still a man with a gun. (metaphorically speaking)
Like all politicians, He doesn’t practice what he preaches.
(The demands and responsibilities of a US president are not ones that can be treated casually. In a big, complex, diverse country. The only way to be successful is by listening and reaching out to and working with a wide verity of people. )
Jeremiah Wright – Obama’s mentor – Hate speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJB-qkfUHc
Have you ever heard Obama when the teleprompter breaks down?
He’s great at reading words others have prepared for him. On his own, he’s a clown.
Well .. he’s okay with short phrases like “Hold up!” and even some simple commands like “Everybody sit down and be quiet for a second.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5clY5JWE54#t=77
My favorite:
BFL – It’s almost as though the lie in what he had just stated rose up and slapped his brain short circuiting too many neurons to continue.
“… is if we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion … eh eh eh eh eh …..”
(Now hold on here Barrack, what am I about to say? Let’s see… I’m the one who has been getting people to turn against each on the basis of race and religion so shouldn’t I be saying how successful I’ve been at doing that? NO NO NO! What in the world happened here? I have to say something but what was it? Where am I going with this? Yikes eh eh eh eh eh….)
What kind of person believes that they are smarter than whole nations, that open access to information is dangerous, that speech and communication among citizens is threatening, that free and fair elections aren’t valid when they lose, and that violent insurrection is preferred to the peaceful and lawful transfer of power?
A. Nazi leaders.
B. Communist leaders.
C. Democrat politicians, bureaucrats and technocrats.
D. All of the above.
Answer: D.
Hummm, what did he say about the use of social media again?
http://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2015/03/13/shadowy-501c4-barackobama-invites-you-to-play-final-four-like-bracket-game-on-climate-change/
If anyone needs any convincing of how dangerous the plans of Merkel and Obama are they should consider the response of the politicians and the mainstream media to what happened in many German cities last New Year’s Eve.
New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany
During the 2015/2016 New Year’s Eve celebrations, hundreds of sexual assaults (including groping), at least five rapes, and numerous thefts were reported in Germany, mainly in Cologne city centre. Similar incidents were reported in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, and Bielefeld. …
All of the incidents involved women being surrounded and assaulted by groups of men on the street. Police estimate that 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and that at least 2,000 men were involved, acting in groups.[28] Police reported that the perpetrators were men of “Arab or North African appearance” and said that Germany had never experienced such mass sexual assaults before. …
The Cologne assaults were not reported by the national media for days, and The Local says many news outlets started reporting it only after a wave of anger on social media made covering the story unavoidable. Although Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker condemned the assaults, she was strongly criticized for some of her comments and was accused of blaming the victims. Cologne’s police chief, Wolfgang Albers, was transferred to provisional retirement for his handling of the situation. The police response and delayed media reaction met strong criticism from German citizens, with some placing blame on the European migrant crisis.
Merkel was brought up in East Germany when it was ruled by a Communist regime. There the media was rigorously controlled. In the modern re-united Germany the media seems to exercise a lot of self control to suppress certain viewpoints. If it were not for the Internet the authorities and the mainstream media might have succeeded in their attempt to suppress news of the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults. Merkel has consistently advocated stricter control of the Internet.
Merkel Accuses Facebook, Google Of “Distorting Perception”, Wants Access To Algorithms
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-26/merkel-accuses-facebook-google-distorting-perception-wants-access-algorithms
While Facebook and Google have been repeatedly accused of media bias and manipulating public opinion, especially during the US presidential campaign, an unexpected attack on the two media giants came today not from the US but from Germany, when Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a full-on attack at the two companies, accusing them of “narrowing perspective,” and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right.
This is not the first attack on social media by Merkel and her Grand Coalition government. Curious, while the German politician advocates diversity of views, she has previously accused it of perpetrating opinions that are most at odds with those of the establishment and traditional media.
In other words, instead of seeking to cripple the informational monopoly of Facebook and Google, Merkel was merely pursuing her own, ulterior motives. Last month, the chancellor accused AfD, the recently-established anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party, which receives overwhelmingly negative coverage in most newspapers, of “spreading their lies” through social media, as it achieves breakthroughs in regional elections around the country.
n other words, the Germans want to tackle the biased information and “distorted perceptions” with state censorship. Somehow that strikes us as ironic.
In the end, it turns out Merkel’s mini crusafe is nothing more than an attempt at scapegoating her own immigration policy failures on the web giants. Justice Minister Heiko Maas – who said that there had been a 77 percent increase in hate crimes following the arrival of 900,000 asylum seekers – has given internet media companies until February next year to comply with EU directives on xenophobia and racism, or face legal action.
Touche. Merkel is an idealist but the German MSM is really hopeless.
Three reasons I can think of at the moment for why we should NEVER allow thugs like Obama to ever regain power over us –
** “Phony news” on the Internet helped expose the fact that Bill Clinton was getting BJ’s in the oval office.
** “Phony news” from the Internet blogosphere exposed the fraud by Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and two others for fabricating documents from Lieutenant Colonel Killian for the purpose of hurting George Bush’s reelection.
** “Phony news” from the Internet blogosphere exposed that MSNBC fraudulently edited the 911 tape of George Zimmerman for the purpose of painting him as a racist.
Those were all true, they were exposed by us and, without a free Internet no one would have ever known about them from the likes of CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, NYT, et al. A free Internet is like sunshine – the BEST disinfectant.
Would that be the memo that was written in a font that didn’t exist at the time the memo was supposed to have been written, and on a proportional spacing printer of the type that only the highest end type-writters supported at the time. Certainly not the type to be found in Air Force clerk’s office.
Yep. I remember back in 2004 typing out the same text myself both on Word 97 trying various fonts, etc. Luckily, the person who produced the fakes, (probably Burkett) was just stupid to use a proportional Truetype font. The wiki entry shows a blink comparison of a Word document and the document CBS presented as written by Killian –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy
These Globalist Criminals need to be locked up
Oh yes Obama control and censor the Internet that will get your dems reelected every time!! Wonder if he realises that many people voted for Trump to get away from having their lives being controlled and regulated?
Wow, the arrogance. They see the people as stupid sheep and themselves as the enlightened shepherds who must protect the masses from themselves. Unfortunately, many of their supporters see themselves the same way. I wouldn’t let Obama carry my tools…
That is easy to show in how leftists declare over and over again that people are helpless and only government action can save them.
Look at how they insist that only government can ensure the safety of food, or the products you buy.
While the FDA does get over zealous (much like the EPA) some basic rules are needed:
“Canning was a popular method of preserving meats, but it was often so poorly done that, while only 379 soldiers died in combat during the Spanish American War, 1,000 or more soldiers died from eating the spoiled canned meat supplied to them. But you didn’t need to be a soldier to suffer; just buying food for your family was a risky business, especially if you were poor. Foods were often bug-ridden, adulterated, and advertised with exorbitant (read: lying) claims.
During this time there were few standards or regulations for either processing or selling food. Meat processing plants were filthy, and more than just food would get into your mouth! Upton Sinclair went undercover into one such plant to write his book The Jungle, which brought these conditions to light. While Sinclair’s focus was the preaching of socialism, his descriptions of plant conditions impelled U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to order a full investigation of the meat-packing industry. This led to the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 , beginning the thrust of the regulations that the U.S. (and, in their own versions, Canada and the rest of the world) follows today.”
http://www.food-safety-and-you.com/HistoryofFoodSafety.html
If ANY other proof was necessary to realize the entire green agenda is a conspiracy for global dominance…
Typical of the left to find something other than their policies as the reason they lost. They also seem to forget that the candidate they chose for POTUS would be in jail if not for her political connections and that this was known long before she was nominated. Yes, the Internet played a part, but the part it played was to bring into sharp focus those issues that the left wanted to keep hidden. If not for a MSM that fawned over Clinton and generally ignored the issues the left wanted to hide, she would have even lost California and New York.
Which is why they want the power to ban any news that they declare to be “fake”.
And who gets to decide what is “fake” ??
All statists pine for more control, that’s their unifying principal.
The Third Reich didn’t like any message getting out that they didn’t control. Why would Obama and Merkel be any different?