Public Comment

The recent phenomenon of fake news, along with people (namely Trump) falsely claiming that certain items are fake news, is the scariest thing I have so far seen. I've been in the habit of automatically assuming factual accuracy in news reports, and up until now, it had never occurred to me that some news stories could just be made up. Now, I can no longer count on that. 

When the news says anything unflattering or damaging about Trump, (which is likely to be truth) Trump can just say it is fake news. Now, anyone who doesn't like something reported in the news can just say that it is fake. 

This disrupts the fabric of society on an international level, and it is serious. People can not function if they can't get information they can count on. And this moves us into the danger zone with respect to us becoming an increasingly Orwellian society.  

The U.S. is in a death struggle with forces that would like to wipe out basic liberty, freedom of thought, and freedom from fear of the government. We are on the verge of becoming no different from China, Russia and North Korea, in regards to human rights being absent, and in regards to the common person being trampled on by the soldiers, tanks, and guns of another dictatorship. This fake news thing has to be solved, however I have no idea how people would do that.