Tunis, Tunisia â A leading human rights group has slammed the use of a Tunisian law criminalising the spreading of âfake newsâ to stifle free speech in the country.
The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has criticised the implementation of the legislation, issued directly by President Kais Saied following his 2021 suspension of parliament, which they claim allows him to criminalise any type of electronic communication that he objects to.
Decree 54, issued by President Kais Saied in September 2022, criminalises using electronic equipment to share false information, part of what his supporters have viewed as an important push against attempts to deceive the public.
However, since its introduction, the decree has been utilised to target a number of Saiedâs opponents and critics, with several currently in prison as a result.
The principal focus of the ICJâs criticism is Article 24 of the decree, allowing up to five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $15,000 for anyone found to be spreading âfalse information and rumoursâ online. Critically, that sentence doubles if the offending statement is made about a state official.
However, critics have pointed out that by failing to define precisely what constitutes false information or rumour, the decree has gifted lawmakers an easy tool with which to penalise critical speech.
Other provisions allowed for the security services to search telecommunication devices or computers for material considered to be in breach of the Decree and for devices to be seized and data intercepted if authorities believed there was probable cause.
The US used to have similar laws and nobody whined about free speech. Media outlets should not be able to lie to people. Period.
I donât agree with this. I tend to be a free speech absolutist, but if itâs called news, it should only be facts, never opinions, never an agenda. I think the term news should be a criteria that if not met, canât legally be called news.
Just like we have truth in ingredients for food, we need the same for information. Everything else is fine and open, but you should not be allowed to intentionally manipulate and misinform under the guise of education
Iâm pretty sure non-bias news is very hard to accomplish, I would suggest Reuters and other news aggregated news site for this.
I think it would be quite boring if not opinions where able to be a thing in the media. I get where you are coming from but if people have the understanding that you have to keep in mind of the bias of the person writing the article then it shouldnât be hard to get a sense of what to trust.
There was also a site that was posted in another thread that has a very interesting concept where you can split news from left to right. I donât remember the name of it right now but there is always alternatives.
Really sad what happened in that country. They where on the path of democracy but ended up with an autocratic once more.
