When it comes to talking honestly about the impact of trade on the labor market few papers flunk the test as badly as the Washington Post. It is a consistent and unreflective supporter of the pro-business trade policy that has been pursued by administrations of both parties for the last four decades.
Regular Beat the Press readers know how in an editorial defending NAFTA the paper absurdly claimed that Mexico’s GDP quadrupled between 1987 and 2007. According to the I.M.F., the actual growth figure was 84.2 percent. More than ten years later the paper still has not corrected this error.
Given the paper’s bias, it was not surprising to see a headline in the print edition that noted the loss of jobs over the last two decades and told readers, “it’s the robots.” The reason why this headline is out of line is that the article actually said the opposite. (The headline of the online version is identical, but excludes the reference to robots.)
The article is reporting on new research by Katharine Abraham and Melissa Kearney which examines the factors that might have led to the drop in employment rates since 2000. (I have not yet read the paper, but Katharine Abraham is one of the best labor economists anywhere, so I take seriously anything she does.) The article lists the factors in order of importance. It reports Abraham and Kearney’s assessment:
“Abraham and Kearney estimate that this competition [from Chinese imports] cost the economy about 2.65 million jobs over the period.”
The next paragraph is about robots:
“…the duo estimated that robots cost the economy another 1.4 million workers.”
So Abraham and Kearney very clearly see robots as being considerably less important in causing job loss than trade. In fact, their assessment implies the impact of trade was almost twice as large as the impact of robots.
To put it as simply as possible, the Post’s headline directly contradicts the information presented in the article. I suppose that Washington Post headline writers are not allowed to say anything that might reflect negatively on our patterns of trade.
And, just to be clear, this is not about pushing some seemingly noble goal like “free trade.” The Post has no problem with protectionist barriers that raise the pay of doctors and keep drug prices high. This is about pushing trade policies that redistribute income upward.
When it comes to talking honestly about the impact of trade on the labor market few papers flunk the test as badly as the Washington Post. It is a consistent and unreflective supporter of the pro-business trade policy that has been pursued by administrations of both parties for the last four decades.
Regular Beat the Press readers know how in an editorial defending NAFTA the paper absurdly claimed that Mexico’s GDP quadrupled between 1987 and 2007. According to the I.M.F., the actual growth figure was 84.2 percent. More than ten years later the paper still has not corrected this error.
Given the paper’s bias, it was not surprising to see a headline in the print edition that noted the loss of jobs over the last two decades and told readers, “it’s the robots.” The reason why this headline is out of line is that the article actually said the opposite. (The headline of the online version is identical, but excludes the reference to robots.)
The article is reporting on new research by Katharine Abraham and Melissa Kearney which examines the factors that might have led to the drop in employment rates since 2000. (I have not yet read the paper, but Katharine Abraham is one of the best labor economists anywhere, so I take seriously anything she does.) The article lists the factors in order of importance. It reports Abraham and Kearney’s assessment:
“Abraham and Kearney estimate that this competition [from Chinese imports] cost the economy about 2.65 million jobs over the period.”
The next paragraph is about robots:
“…the duo estimated that robots cost the economy another 1.4 million workers.”
So Abraham and Kearney very clearly see robots as being considerably less important in causing job loss than trade. In fact, their assessment implies the impact of trade was almost twice as large as the impact of robots.
To put it as simply as possible, the Post’s headline directly contradicts the information presented in the article. I suppose that Washington Post headline writers are not allowed to say anything that might reflect negatively on our patterns of trade.
And, just to be clear, this is not about pushing some seemingly noble goal like “free trade.” The Post has no problem with protectionist barriers that raise the pay of doctors and keep drug prices high. This is about pushing trade policies that redistribute income upward.
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We would usually expect that a 12-year-old kid would be taller than a 6-year-old kid. However, if a 12-year-old had only grown one inch over their last six years, we would probably be somewhat worried.
David Brooks devotes his most recent column, “the virtue of radical honesty” to presenting data from Steven Pinker’s new book, Enlightenment Now, which purports to show that things are better than ever. Most of the data has the character of boasting over our 12-year-old’s one inch of growth over the last six years.
Brooks tells us:
“For example, we’re all aware of the gloomy statistics around wage stagnation and income inequality, but Pinker contends that we should not be nostalgic for the economy of the 1950s, when jobs were plentiful and unions strong. A third of American children lived in poverty. Sixty percent of seniors had incomes below $1,000 a year. Only half the population had any savings in the bank at all.
“Between 1979 and 2014, meanwhile, the percentage of poor Americans dropped to 20 percent from 24 percent. The percentage of lower-middle-class Americans dropped to 17 from 24. The percentage of Americans who were upper middle class (earning $100,000 to $350,000) shot upward to 30 percent from 13 percent.”
The problem with the Brooks–Pinker story is that we expect the economy/people to get richer through time. After all, technology and education improve. In the fifties, we didn’t have the Internet, cell phones, and all sorts of other goodies. In fact, at the start of the fifties, we didn’t even have the polio vaccine.
The question is not whether we are better off today than we were sixty years ago. It would be incredible if we were not better off. The question is by how much. In the fifties, wages and incomes for ordinary families were rising at a rate of close to two percent annually. In the last forty-five years, they have barely risen at all.
This fact can be seen even looking at the numbers that Brooks is bragging over. While it’s not clear where they got their poverty data, the child poverty rate comes closest to the numbers in the article. This was at 22.3 percent in 1983. It was down to 21.1 percent in 2014 and fell further to 18.0 percent in 2016.
Should we celebrate this reduction in poverty rates over the last 33 years? Well, the poverty rate had fallen from 27.3 percent in 1959 (the first year for this data series) to 14.0 percent in 1969. That’s a drop of 13.3 percentage points in just ten years. The net direction in the last 47 years has been upward.
It’s true that a larger share of the population is earning over $100,000 a year. This is due to some growth in hourly wages, but also due to more work per family. A much larger share of women are working today than fifty years ago and a larger share of the women working are working full-time. If family income had continued growing at its pace from 1967 to 1973 (the last years of the Golden Age), median family income would be almost $150,000 today.
There are a whole a range of other measures which leave real enlightenment-types appalled by the state of the country today. While Brooks–Pinker tell us “only half the population had any savings at all” in the 1950s, a recent survey found that 63 percent of the country could not afford an unexpected bill of $500. The homeownership rate is roughly the same as it was sixty years ago. Life expectancy for those in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution has barely budged in the last forty years.
In short, a serious analysis of data shows that most people have good grounds for complaints about their situation today since they have not shared to any significant extent in the economic growth of the last four decades. But apparently, there is a big market for the sort of dog and pony show that Brooks and Pinker present trying to argue the opposite.
We would usually expect that a 12-year-old kid would be taller than a 6-year-old kid. However, if a 12-year-old had only grown one inch over their last six years, we would probably be somewhat worried.
David Brooks devotes his most recent column, “the virtue of radical honesty” to presenting data from Steven Pinker’s new book, Enlightenment Now, which purports to show that things are better than ever. Most of the data has the character of boasting over our 12-year-old’s one inch of growth over the last six years.
Brooks tells us:
“For example, we’re all aware of the gloomy statistics around wage stagnation and income inequality, but Pinker contends that we should not be nostalgic for the economy of the 1950s, when jobs were plentiful and unions strong. A third of American children lived in poverty. Sixty percent of seniors had incomes below $1,000 a year. Only half the population had any savings in the bank at all.
“Between 1979 and 2014, meanwhile, the percentage of poor Americans dropped to 20 percent from 24 percent. The percentage of lower-middle-class Americans dropped to 17 from 24. The percentage of Americans who were upper middle class (earning $100,000 to $350,000) shot upward to 30 percent from 13 percent.”
The problem with the Brooks–Pinker story is that we expect the economy/people to get richer through time. After all, technology and education improve. In the fifties, we didn’t have the Internet, cell phones, and all sorts of other goodies. In fact, at the start of the fifties, we didn’t even have the polio vaccine.
The question is not whether we are better off today than we were sixty years ago. It would be incredible if we were not better off. The question is by how much. In the fifties, wages and incomes for ordinary families were rising at a rate of close to two percent annually. In the last forty-five years, they have barely risen at all.
This fact can be seen even looking at the numbers that Brooks is bragging over. While it’s not clear where they got their poverty data, the child poverty rate comes closest to the numbers in the article. This was at 22.3 percent in 1983. It was down to 21.1 percent in 2014 and fell further to 18.0 percent in 2016.
Should we celebrate this reduction in poverty rates over the last 33 years? Well, the poverty rate had fallen from 27.3 percent in 1959 (the first year for this data series) to 14.0 percent in 1969. That’s a drop of 13.3 percentage points in just ten years. The net direction in the last 47 years has been upward.
It’s true that a larger share of the population is earning over $100,000 a year. This is due to some growth in hourly wages, but also due to more work per family. A much larger share of women are working today than fifty years ago and a larger share of the women working are working full-time. If family income had continued growing at its pace from 1967 to 1973 (the last years of the Golden Age), median family income would be almost $150,000 today.
There are a whole a range of other measures which leave real enlightenment-types appalled by the state of the country today. While Brooks–Pinker tell us “only half the population had any savings at all” in the 1950s, a recent survey found that 63 percent of the country could not afford an unexpected bill of $500. The homeownership rate is roughly the same as it was sixty years ago. Life expectancy for those in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution has barely budged in the last forty years.
In short, a serious analysis of data shows that most people have good grounds for complaints about their situation today since they have not shared to any significant extent in the economic growth of the last four decades. But apparently, there is a big market for the sort of dog and pony show that Brooks and Pinker present trying to argue the opposite.
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That’s a bit of background that might have been helpful for people reading this Washington Post article on Disney’s threat to withhold a $1,000 bonus from union workers unless they accept a contract offer from the company. According to the article, the company will be paying out a total of $125 million in one-time bonuses.
Last year, the company paid $4,422 million in taxes on $13,788 million in pre-tax income for an effective tax rate of 31.9 percent. If the new tax law lowers Disney’s tax rate to 21 percent (this assumes it pays the statutory rate, without being able to benefit from various special provisions in the tax code), it would save just under $1.5 billion based on its 2017 income. It would presumably save comparable or larger amounts in future years as its profits grow. By contrast, the bonuses are being offered to workers are a one-time event which may not be repeated.
That’s a bit of background that might have been helpful for people reading this Washington Post article on Disney’s threat to withhold a $1,000 bonus from union workers unless they accept a contract offer from the company. According to the article, the company will be paying out a total of $125 million in one-time bonuses.
Last year, the company paid $4,422 million in taxes on $13,788 million in pre-tax income for an effective tax rate of 31.9 percent. If the new tax law lowers Disney’s tax rate to 21 percent (this assumes it pays the statutory rate, without being able to benefit from various special provisions in the tax code), it would save just under $1.5 billion based on its 2017 income. It would presumably save comparable or larger amounts in future years as its profits grow. By contrast, the bonuses are being offered to workers are a one-time event which may not be repeated.
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An NYT article discussed a plan being pushed by Ivanka Trump and several Republicans in the Senate which would allow for new mothers to take up to twelve weeks of paid family leave. This would be paid for by delaying their Social Security retirement benefits beyond age 67, which would be when they would now be able to collect full benefits.
The piece quotes Carrie Lucas, the President of the Independent Women’s Forum saying:
“Sixty-seven is really late middle age, and many people are really happy to continue working.”
We actually have data on the percentage of women age 65 to 69 who are now in the labor force and continuing to work, happy or not. In the most recent data, less than 28 percent of women in the age group were in the labor force. The share is considerably lower for less-educated workers, who would be the ones most in need of paid leave. The share falls off rapidly as women age so that the labor force participation rate for women between the ages of 70 and 74 is less than 16.0 percent.
It also worth noting that a large percentage of these women work at physically demanding jobs like housekeepers or table servers. These women are likely to find it quite difficult to add another six months or year to their working careers.
An NYT article discussed a plan being pushed by Ivanka Trump and several Republicans in the Senate which would allow for new mothers to take up to twelve weeks of paid family leave. This would be paid for by delaying their Social Security retirement benefits beyond age 67, which would be when they would now be able to collect full benefits.
The piece quotes Carrie Lucas, the President of the Independent Women’s Forum saying:
“Sixty-seven is really late middle age, and many people are really happy to continue working.”
We actually have data on the percentage of women age 65 to 69 who are now in the labor force and continuing to work, happy or not. In the most recent data, less than 28 percent of women in the age group were in the labor force. The share is considerably lower for less-educated workers, who would be the ones most in need of paid leave. The share falls off rapidly as women age so that the labor force participation rate for women between the ages of 70 and 74 is less than 16.0 percent.
It also worth noting that a large percentage of these women work at physically demanding jobs like housekeepers or table servers. These women are likely to find it quite difficult to add another six months or year to their working careers.
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An NYT Magazine piece does a very nice job laying out the argument as to how platform monopolies like Google could be engaging in anti-competitive practices.
An NYT Magazine piece does a very nice job laying out the argument as to how platform monopolies like Google could be engaging in anti-competitive practices.
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It is amazing how frequently we hear people asserting that the massive inequality we are now seeing in the United States is the result of an unfettered market. I realize that this is a convenient view for those who are on the upside of things, but it also happens to be nonsense.
Today’s highlighted nonsense pusher is Amy Chua, who warns in an NYT column about the destructive path the United States is now on where a disaffected white population takes out its wrath on economic elites and racial minorities. The key part missing from the story is that disaffected masses really do have a legitimate gripe.
We didn’t have to make patent and copyright monopolies ever longer and stronger, allowing folks like Bill Gates to get incredibly rich. We could have made Amazon pay the same sales tax as their mom and pop competitors, which would mean Jeff Bezos would not be incredibly rich. We could subject Wall Street financial transactions to the same sort of sales taxes as people pay on shoes and clothes, hugely downsizing the high incomes earned in this sector. And, we could have rules of corporate governance that make it easier for shareholders to rein in CEO pay.
None of the rules we have in place that redistribute upward were given to us by the market. They were the result of deliberate economic policy. (Yes, this is the topic of my [free] book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer.) It is understandable that the losers from this upward redistribution would be resentful and they likely are even more resentful when the beneficiaries of the rigging just pretend that it was just a natural outcome of the market.
It is amazing how frequently we hear people asserting that the massive inequality we are now seeing in the United States is the result of an unfettered market. I realize that this is a convenient view for those who are on the upside of things, but it also happens to be nonsense.
Today’s highlighted nonsense pusher is Amy Chua, who warns in an NYT column about the destructive path the United States is now on where a disaffected white population takes out its wrath on economic elites and racial minorities. The key part missing from the story is that disaffected masses really do have a legitimate gripe.
We didn’t have to make patent and copyright monopolies ever longer and stronger, allowing folks like Bill Gates to get incredibly rich. We could have made Amazon pay the same sales tax as their mom and pop competitors, which would mean Jeff Bezos would not be incredibly rich. We could subject Wall Street financial transactions to the same sort of sales taxes as people pay on shoes and clothes, hugely downsizing the high incomes earned in this sector. And, we could have rules of corporate governance that make it easier for shareholders to rein in CEO pay.
None of the rules we have in place that redistribute upward were given to us by the market. They were the result of deliberate economic policy. (Yes, this is the topic of my [free] book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer.) It is understandable that the losers from this upward redistribution would be resentful and they likely are even more resentful when the beneficiaries of the rigging just pretend that it was just a natural outcome of the market.
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In the last six months, Republicans gave up being a party that pretends to care about budget deficits as they happily pushed through large tax cuts (roughly 0.7 percent of GDP over the next decade) and big increases in spending (roughly 0.7 percent of GDP over the next two years). The deficit picture looks much worse today than it did a year ago.
While the few remaining deficit hawks at the Washington Post and the Peter Peterson–funded organizations are screaming, the question serious people should be asking is: why don’t the markets don’t share their concerns? In particular, the bond market, where the “bond vigilantes” live, should be going nuts with much larger deficits now being projected for as far as the eye can see.
It is true that rates have gone up. At just under 2.9 percent, the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds is almost half a percentage point higher than it was a year ago. But a 2.9 percent rate is still very low by any reasonable standard. After all, it was over 3.0 percent at the end of 2013 and it was over 5.0 percent in the late 1990s as the deficits were turning to surpluses.
The current 2.9 percent rate is also well below what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had projected just a couple of years ago when it expected deficits to stay on their prior no tax cut path. In January of 2016, CBO projected that the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds would be 3.7 percent by now. This means that even with the recent run-up, long-term interests are still 0.8 percentage points below what CBO had projected without any major increases in the budget deficit.
This might suggest that the concerns that deficits would send interest rates through the roof have little basis in reality. After all, long-term interest rates are driven by expectations, and unless investors in the bond market have hugely different expectations about the size of deficits than folks in Washington, they apparently don’t believe that the larger deficits we are now looking at are that big a deal.
In the last six months, Republicans gave up being a party that pretends to care about budget deficits as they happily pushed through large tax cuts (roughly 0.7 percent of GDP over the next decade) and big increases in spending (roughly 0.7 percent of GDP over the next two years). The deficit picture looks much worse today than it did a year ago.
While the few remaining deficit hawks at the Washington Post and the Peter Peterson–funded organizations are screaming, the question serious people should be asking is: why don’t the markets don’t share their concerns? In particular, the bond market, where the “bond vigilantes” live, should be going nuts with much larger deficits now being projected for as far as the eye can see.
It is true that rates have gone up. At just under 2.9 percent, the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds is almost half a percentage point higher than it was a year ago. But a 2.9 percent rate is still very low by any reasonable standard. After all, it was over 3.0 percent at the end of 2013 and it was over 5.0 percent in the late 1990s as the deficits were turning to surpluses.
The current 2.9 percent rate is also well below what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had projected just a couple of years ago when it expected deficits to stay on their prior no tax cut path. In January of 2016, CBO projected that the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds would be 3.7 percent by now. This means that even with the recent run-up, long-term interests are still 0.8 percentage points below what CBO had projected without any major increases in the budget deficit.
This might suggest that the concerns that deficits would send interest rates through the roof have little basis in reality. After all, long-term interest rates are driven by expectations, and unless investors in the bond market have hugely different expectations about the size of deficits than folks in Washington, they apparently don’t believe that the larger deficits we are now looking at are that big a deal.
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This is an assertion in a major Post article on infrastructure, but it doesn’t fit with the evidence. Trump is actually only proposing to put up $200 billion (0.09 percent of GDP) over the next decade towards his infrastructure initiative.
The rest is supposed to come from state and local governments and private investors. As the piece notes, many are dubious whether anything like this amount will be forthcoming. Also, Trump is proposing large cuts to Amtrak and a wide range of other areas of infrastructure spending, so his proposed increase in spending is far less this $200 billion figure.
While the Post wants to assure readers that Trump really expects that his proposal might lead to an increase in infrastructure spending of $1.5 trillion (0.7 percent of GDP) over the next decade, let me suggest an alternative possibility. Trump made big promises about infrastructure spending during the campaign. It is likely that many of his supporters took these promises seriously.
However, Trump really doesn’t give a damn about infrastructure and the Republicans in Congress are not willing to increase the deficit, give back part of their tax cut, or reduce military spending to accommodate additional infrastructure spending. Therefore, Trump goes out and touts a plan that everyone knows doesn’t add up but still allows him to pretend to be meeting his commitment to his base.
I have no idea if my alternative scenario is accurate, but I would argue that it is at least as plausible as the Post’s claim that Trump or anyone else actually expects this plan to produce $1.5 trillion in additional infrastructure spending. Since neither the Post nor I know what is in the heads of Trump and his top aides, how about they just report the plan and what Trump’s people say about it, and not claim to know what anyone’s real “aims” are.
This is an assertion in a major Post article on infrastructure, but it doesn’t fit with the evidence. Trump is actually only proposing to put up $200 billion (0.09 percent of GDP) over the next decade towards his infrastructure initiative.
The rest is supposed to come from state and local governments and private investors. As the piece notes, many are dubious whether anything like this amount will be forthcoming. Also, Trump is proposing large cuts to Amtrak and a wide range of other areas of infrastructure spending, so his proposed increase in spending is far less this $200 billion figure.
While the Post wants to assure readers that Trump really expects that his proposal might lead to an increase in infrastructure spending of $1.5 trillion (0.7 percent of GDP) over the next decade, let me suggest an alternative possibility. Trump made big promises about infrastructure spending during the campaign. It is likely that many of his supporters took these promises seriously.
However, Trump really doesn’t give a damn about infrastructure and the Republicans in Congress are not willing to increase the deficit, give back part of their tax cut, or reduce military spending to accommodate additional infrastructure spending. Therefore, Trump goes out and touts a plan that everyone knows doesn’t add up but still allows him to pretend to be meeting his commitment to his base.
I have no idea if my alternative scenario is accurate, but I would argue that it is at least as plausible as the Post’s claim that Trump or anyone else actually expects this plan to produce $1.5 trillion in additional infrastructure spending. Since neither the Post nor I know what is in the heads of Trump and his top aides, how about they just report the plan and what Trump’s people say about it, and not claim to know what anyone’s real “aims” are.
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It seems that bad guys (Russians and others) are using Facebook to spread all sorts of nonsense under false identities. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and very rich person, tells us that he is very concerned about the problem but doesn’t know exactly what to do. Congress can help out Facebook and Zuckerberg.
Back in the late 1990s, when the Internet was rapidly becoming an important means of communication, the entertainment industry became concerned about people transferring copies of copyrighted music without permission. It got Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).
There are many aspects to the DMCA, but the key part is that it imposes harsh punitive damages for anyone who allows copyrighted material to be transferred through their site. If a copyright holder notifies the owner of the site that they have posted their material without authorization, the owner of the site must remove it within 48 hours or face steep penalties.
The site owner is liable for damages even if a third party posted the infringing material. This means that if someone were to post a copyrighted song in the comments section to this blog, CEPR would be liable if it was not removed after notification.
It is important to note that the damages are punitive, not just actual. Suppose someone posts a minor hit from thirty years ago that 20 people download from this site. Given the prices commanded for downloads of old music, the actual damages would be a few cents. Nonetheless, under the DMCA, CEPR could be liable for thousands of dollars in damages. This can be a great model for Facebook and other potential purveyors of fake news.
Here’s how it would work. Imagine that I get a posting on my Facebook feed from something that looks dubious. I send a note to Facebook indicating that I don’t think that this posting is from a real source. Facebook then has 48 hours to investigate and determine if the source is real. If it determines that it is not real it must notify every person who received the posting, either directly or through its sharing system, that the source was fake.
Just as is the case with the DMCA, Facebook could face stiff penalties, say $10,000 a shot, for failing to act within the 48-hour time frame. This would ensure that Facebook would have a powerful incentive to move quickly to prevent the spread of fake news and false stories.
My guess is that Facebook has the technical expertise to meet this requirement. But if it doesn’t, who gives a damn? This is a reasonable expectation of a system like Facebook and if Mark Zuckerberg and his crew lack the competence to meet it, then a better run competitor will take its place.
See, this is all fun and easy. It just requires a Congress that cares as much about protecting democracy as the copyrights of Disney and Time-Warner.
It seems that bad guys (Russians and others) are using Facebook to spread all sorts of nonsense under false identities. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and very rich person, tells us that he is very concerned about the problem but doesn’t know exactly what to do. Congress can help out Facebook and Zuckerberg.
Back in the late 1990s, when the Internet was rapidly becoming an important means of communication, the entertainment industry became concerned about people transferring copies of copyrighted music without permission. It got Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).
There are many aspects to the DMCA, but the key part is that it imposes harsh punitive damages for anyone who allows copyrighted material to be transferred through their site. If a copyright holder notifies the owner of the site that they have posted their material without authorization, the owner of the site must remove it within 48 hours or face steep penalties.
The site owner is liable for damages even if a third party posted the infringing material. This means that if someone were to post a copyrighted song in the comments section to this blog, CEPR would be liable if it was not removed after notification.
It is important to note that the damages are punitive, not just actual. Suppose someone posts a minor hit from thirty years ago that 20 people download from this site. Given the prices commanded for downloads of old music, the actual damages would be a few cents. Nonetheless, under the DMCA, CEPR could be liable for thousands of dollars in damages. This can be a great model for Facebook and other potential purveyors of fake news.
Here’s how it would work. Imagine that I get a posting on my Facebook feed from something that looks dubious. I send a note to Facebook indicating that I don’t think that this posting is from a real source. Facebook then has 48 hours to investigate and determine if the source is real. If it determines that it is not real it must notify every person who received the posting, either directly or through its sharing system, that the source was fake.
Just as is the case with the DMCA, Facebook could face stiff penalties, say $10,000 a shot, for failing to act within the 48-hour time frame. This would ensure that Facebook would have a powerful incentive to move quickly to prevent the spread of fake news and false stories.
My guess is that Facebook has the technical expertise to meet this requirement. But if it doesn’t, who gives a damn? This is a reasonable expectation of a system like Facebook and if Mark Zuckerberg and his crew lack the competence to meet it, then a better run competitor will take its place.
See, this is all fun and easy. It just requires a Congress that cares as much about protecting democracy as the copyrights of Disney and Time-Warner.
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