By Meanne Corvera
Eagle News Service
The Presidential Communications Operations Office on Thursday expressed reservations about providing a definition for “fake news,” saying doing so could result in “risks of a seemingly boundless government regulation that runs counter to freedom of speech and expression.”
Assistant Communications Secretary Ana Marie Banaag said in a hearing by the committee on public information and mass media that if a definition was to be made, it should take into consideration the “harms” of fake news.
Fake news in particular, she said, “undermines a society’s capability to participate in discourse.”
“(But) our office would opt not to give a definite definition of what fake news is. We have reservations,” Banaag said.
This is the Senate panel’s third and last hearing on fake news.
