nach oben

Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy

Erschienen in:

04.01.2021 | Scientific Contribution

Do we need the criminalization of medical fake news?

verfasst von: Kamil Mamak

Erschienen in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy | Ausgabe 2/2021

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten

Abstract

Uncontrolled access to information on the Internet has many advantages, but it also leads to the phenomenon of fake news. Fake news is dangerous in many spheres, including that of health. For example, we are facing an increase in the amount of vaccine hesitancy. This has been w considered by the World Health Organization in 2019 as one of the greatest threats to public health. This specific phenomenon is linked with the spread of information on the Internet around that issue. In this paper, I discuss a proposition of new crime, which has the aim of fighting medical fake news by stopping its spread. This proposition should be considered only if other non-criminal measures are inefficient. The proposal is “Whoever publicly disseminates information evidently discrepant with medical knowledge is subject to a penalty.”

The idea of criminalization of medical fake news I presented in a popular science blog in Polish, see: Mamak (2020a, b).

Ten threats to global health in 2019.

Kata, A postmodern Pandora’s box.

Russia trolls “spreading vaccine discord” (2018); Broniatowski et al. (2018).

I K 105/34 (1934).

J. Raglewski [in], Barczak-Oplustil et al. (2017) commentary to Article 212.

See: M. Bielski [in], Barczak-Oplustil et al. (2017) commentary to Article 200.

It is an aspect of crime which is connected with the term ‘mens rea’ which is not used in the Polish legal system, see: Lewna (2018), Zontek (2018).

There is a report showing which crimes already existing in the Polish legal system could be considered as the criminalization of fake news, see: Mamak (2020a, b).

Official translation on the website of Institute of National Remembrance.

Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation. Dz.U. Polish Journal of Laws of 2016 items 152, 178, 677, 749.

Allcott, H., M. Gentzkow, and C. Yu. 2019. Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social media. Research and Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168019848554.CrossRef

Apuke, O.D., and B. Omar. 2020. Fake news and COVID-19: modelling the predictors of fake news sharing among social media users. Telematics and Informatics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101475.CrossRef

Aquino, F., G. Donzelli, E. De Franco, G. Privitera, P.L. Lopalco, and A. Carducci. 2017. The web and public confidence in MMR vaccination in Italy. Vaccine 35: 4494–4498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.07.029.

Arif, N., M. Al-Jefri, I.H. Bizzi, G.B. Perano, M. Goldman, I. Haq, K.L. Chua, M. Mengozzi, M. Neunez, H. Smith, and P. Ghezzi. 2018. Fake news or weak science visibility and characterization of antivaccine webpages returned by google in different languages and countries. Frontiers in Immunology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2018.01215.CrossRef

Barczak-Oplustil, A., M. Bielski, G. Bogdan, Z. Ćwiąkalski, M. Iwański, J. Jodłowski, P. Kardas, M. Małecki, A. Pilch, J. Raglewski, M. Szewczyk, W. Wróbel ed., A. Zoll ed., M. Rams, T. Sroka, A. Wojtaszczyk, and W. Zontek. 2017. Kodeks karny: część szczególna. T. 2, Komentarz do art. 117–211a Wyd. 5, stan prawny na 1 sierpnia 2016 r. Warszawa: Wolters Kluwer.

Barilan, M. 2020. Conscience, religious tolerance and public health. https://politicaltheology.com/conscience-religious-tolerance-and-public-health/. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Betsch, C., F. Renkewitz, T. Betsch, and C. Ulshöfer. 2010. The influence of vaccine-critical websites on perceiving vaccination risks. Journal of Health Psychology 15: 446–455. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105309353647.

Bix, B., and A. Tomkins. 1993. Local authorities and libel again. The Modern Law Review 56: 738–744. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1993.tb01902.x.

Broniatowski, D.A., A.M. Jamison, S. Qi, L. AlKulaib, T. Chen, A. Benton, S.C. Quinn, and M. Dredze. 2018. Weaponized health communication: Twitter bots and Russian trolls amplify the vaccine debate. American Journal of Public Health 108: 1378–1384. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304567.CrossRef

Carrieri, V., L. Madio, and F. Principe. 2019. Vaccine hesitancy and (fake) news: Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy. Health Economics 28: 1377–1382. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3937.

Chiao, V. 2017. Mass incarceration and the theory of punishment. Criminal Law and Philosophy 11: 431–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-015-9378-x.

Dixon, G., and C. Clarke. 2013. The effect of falsely balanced reporting of the autism-vaccine controversy on vaccine safety perceptions and behavioral intentions. Health Education Research 28: 352–359. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cys110.

Dubé, E., J.A. Bettinger, B. Halperin, R. Bradet, F. Lavoie, C. Sauvageau, V. Gilca, and N. Boulianne. 2012. Determinants of parents’ decision to vaccinate their children against rotavirus: Results of a longitudinal study. Health Education Research 27: 1069–1080. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cys088.

Dubé, E., C. Laberge, M. Guay, P. Bramadat, R. Roy, and J.A. Bettinger. 2013. Vaccine hesitancy. Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics 9: 1763–1773. https://doi.org/10.4161/hv.24657.CrossRef

Dubé, E., M. Vivion, and N.E. MacDonald. 2015. Vaccine hesitancy, vaccine refusal and the anti-vaccine movement: Influence, impact and implications. Expert Review of Vaccines 14: 99–117. https://doi.org/10.1586/14760584.2015.964212.

Durbach, N. 2005. Bodily matters: The anti-vaccination movement in England, 1853–1907. Durham: Duke University Press.

Eddy, M. 2019. Germany mandates measles vaccine.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/world/europe/germany-measles-vaccine.html. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Egelhofer, J.L., and S. Lecheler. 2019. Fake news as a two-dimensional phenomenon: A framework and research agenda. Annals of the International Communication Association 43: 97–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2019.1602782.

Elkin-Koren, N., and M.S. Gal. 2019. The chilling effect of governance-by-data on data markets. The University of Chicago Law Review 86: 403–432.

Fondacaro, M.R., and M.J. O’Toole. 2015. American punitiveness and mass incarceration: Psychological perspectives on retributive and consequentialist responses to crime. New Criminal Law Review: International and Interdisciplinary Journal 18: 477–509. https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2015.18.4.477.

Francis, L.P., and J.G. Francis. 2012. Criminalizing health-related behaviors dangerous to others? Disease transmission, transmission-facilitation, and the importance of trust. Criminal Law and Philosophy 6: 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-011-9136-7.

Freedman, D. 2018. Populism and media policy failure. European Journal of Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323118790156.CrossRef

Grech, V. 2017. Fake news and post-truth pronouncements in general and in early human development. Early Human Development 115: 118–120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2017.09.017.

Griffiths, J. 2019. Singapore “fake news” law comes into force, offenders face fines and prison time. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/02/asia/singapore-fake-news-internet-censorship-intl-hnk/index.html. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Harel, A. 2015. The duty to criminalize*. Law and Philosophy 34: 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-014-9209-6.

Hazlett, T.W., and D.W. Sosa. 1997. Was the fairness doctrine a “chilling effect”? Evidence from the postderegulation radio market. The Journal of Legal Studies 26: 279–301. https://doi.org/10.1086/467996.

Hofmann, B. 2018. Fake facts and alternative truths in medical research. BMC Medical Ethics 19: 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0243-z.

Hollinger, R.C., and L. Lanza-Kaduce. 1988. The process of criminalization: The case of computer crime laws*. Criminology 26: 101–126. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1988.tb00834.x.

Howard, E. 2019. Freedom of expression and religious hate speech in Europe, 1st ed. Abington: Routledge.

Husak, D. 2009. Overcriminalization: The limits of the criminal law, 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Institute of National Remembrance. The act on the Institute of National Remembrance. https://ipn.gov.pl/en/about-the-ipn/documents/327,The-Act-on-the-Institute-of-National-Remembrance.html. Accessed 27 Nov 2019.

Jolley, D., and K.M. Douglas. 2014. The effects of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on vaccination intentions. PLoS ONE 9: e89177. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089177.

Jones, A.M., S.B. Omer, R.A. Bednarczyk, N.A. Halsey, L.H. Moulton, and D.A. Salmon. 2012. Parents’ source of vaccine information and impact on vaccine attitudes, beliefs, and nonmedical exemptions. Advances in Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/932741.CrossRef

Jürgens, R., J. Cohen, E. Cameron, S. Burris, M. Clayton, R. Elliott, R. Pearshouse, A. Gathumbi, and D. Cupido. 2009. Ten reasons to oppose the criminalization of HIV exposure or transmission. Reproductive Health Matters 17: 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(09)34462-6.CrossRef

Kahn, R. 2004. Holocaust denial and the law: A comparative study. New York: Springer.

Kata, A. 2010. A postmodern Pandora’s box: Anti-vaccination misinformation on the Internet. Vaccine 28: 1709–1716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2009.12.022.

Kranzberg, M. 1986. Technology and history: “Kranzberg’s Laws.” Technology and Culture 27: 544–660. https://doi.org/10.1177/027046769501500104.

Krishna, A. 2018. Poison or prevention? Understanding the linkages between vaccine-negative individuals’ knowledge deficiency, motivations, and active communication behaviors. Health Communication 133: 1088–1096. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2017.1331307.

Lazer, D.M.J., M.A. Baum, Y. Benkler, A.J. Berinsky, K.M. Greenhill, F. Menczer, M.J. Metzger, B. Nyhan, G. Pennycook, D. Rothschild, M. Schudson, S.A. Sloman, C.R. Sunstein, E.A. Thorson, D.J. Watts, and J.L. Zittrain. 2018. The science of fake news. Science 359: 1094–1096. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2998.

Lecher, C. 2019. California has banned political deepfakes during election season. https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20902884/california-deepfake-political-ban-election-2020. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Lewna, A. 2018. Obiektywizacja odpowiedzialności za lekkomyślność w prawie karnym Anglii i Walii (spojrzenie komparatystyczne). Czasopismo Prawa Karnego i Nauk Penalnych 2: 67–88.

Malsch, M. 2007. Stalking: Do criminalization and punishment help? Punishment & Society 9: 201–209. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474507074751.

Mamak, K. 2020. Prawnokarne sposoby walki z fake newsami. https://centrumcyfrowe.pl/spoltech/raport-prawo-fakenews/. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Mamak, K. 2020. Karalność medycznych fake newsów. http://filozofiawpraktyce.pl/karalnosc-medycznych-fake-newsow/. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Mazur, A. 1999. Biomedical science in supermarket tabloids. Knowledge, Technology and Policy 12: 19–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-999-1011-7.

McNamara, L., J. Quilter, R. Hogg, H. Douglas, A. Loughnan, and D. Brown. 2018. Theorising criminalisation: The value of a modalities approach. Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts: Papers. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v7i3.511.CrossRef

Merchant, R.M., and D.A. Asch. 2018. Protecting the value of medical science in the age of social media and “fake news.” JAMA 320: 2415–2416. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.18416.

Meza, S. 2017. ‘“Fake news” has been named the word of the year by Collins Dictionary. https://www.newsweek.com/fake-news-word-year-collins-dictionary-699740. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Molina, M.D., S.S. Sundar, T. Le, and L. Dongwon. 2019. “Fake News” is not simply false information: A concept explication and taxonomy of online content. In American behavioral scientist, ed. M.D. Molina, S.S. Sundar, T. Le, and D. Lee. New York: SAGE. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219878224.

Nelson, M.C., and J. Rogers. 1992. The right to die? Anti-vaccination activity and the 1874 smallpox epidemic in Stockholm. Social History of Medicine 5: 369–388. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/5.3.369.

Noor, F.A. 2017. How “fake news” was a tool of nineteenth century colonialism and conquest. Media Asia 44: 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2017.1455623

Numerato, D., L. Vochocová, V. Štětka, and A. Macková. 2019. The vaccination debate in the “post-truth” era: social media as sites of multi-layered reflexivity. Sociology of Health and Illness 41: 82–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12873.

Oreskes, N., and E.M. Conway. 2011. Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Orso, D., N. Federici, R. Copetti, L. Vetrugno, and T. Bove. 2020. Infodemic and the spread of fake news in the COVID-19-era. European Journal of Emergency Medicine 27: 327–328. https://doi.org/10.1097/MEJ.0000000000000713.

Ouwerkerk, J.W. 2012. Criminalisation as a last resort: A national principle under the pressure of Europeanisation? New Journal of European Criminal Law 3: 228–341. https://doi.org/10.1177/203228441200300302.

Packer, M. 2017. Are meta-analyses a form of medical fake news? Thoughts about how they should contribute to medical science and practice. Circulation 136: 2097–2099. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.030209.

Park, A. 2012. Andrew Wakefield|Great Science Frauds. http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/13/great-science-frauds/slide/andrew-wakefield/. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Pech, L. 2009. The law of holocaust denial in Europe: towards a (qualified) EU-wide criminal prohibition. Jean Monnet Working Paper No.10/09. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1536078.

Pennycook, G., J. McPhetres, Y. Zhang, J.G. Lu, and D.G. Rand. 2020. Fighting COVID-19 misinformation on social media: Experimental evidence for a scalable accuracy-nudge intervention. Psychological Science 31: 770–780. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620939054.

Peters, M.A. 2019. Anti-intellectualism is a virus. Educational Philosophy and Theory 51: 357–363. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1462946.

Pratt, J. 2006. Penal populism 1. Edition. Abington: Routledge.

Reinisch, A., S.R. Schröder, F. Ulrich, W. Padberg, and J. Liese. 2019. Antibiotic-treated acute appendicitis-reception in social media. Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery 404: 343–349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00423-019-01777-y.

Reiter, K.A. 2017. Mass incarceration 1. Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rogers, K., C. Hauser, A. Yuhas, and M. Haberman, 2020.Trump’s suggestion that disinfectants could be used to treat coronavirus prompts aggressive pushback. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/us/politics/trump-inject-disinfectant-bleach-coronavirus.html. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Roosth, S. 2017. Synthetic: How life got made llustrated. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rose, J. 2017. Brexit, trump, and post-truth politics. Public Integrity 19: 555–558. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2017.1285540.

Sansonetti, P.J. 2018. Measles 2018: A tale of two anniversaries. EMBO Molecular Medicine. https://doi.org/10.15252/emmm.201809176.CrossRef

Sarr, M.G., and K.E. Behrns. 2019. Potential benefit and harm of social media and predatory publishing: A commentary on “antibiotic-treated acute appendicitis—reception in social media.” Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery 404: 351–352. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00423-019-01778-x.

Schoenfeld, H. 2018. Building the prison state: Race and the politics of mass incarceration 1. Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Silverman, R.D. 2019. Controlling measles through politics and policy. Hastings Center Report 49: 8–9. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.996.

Silverman, R.D., and K.S. Hendrix. 2015. POINT: Should childhood vaccination against measles be a mandatory requirement for attending school? Yes. Chest 148: 852–854. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.15-1163.

Singer, P. 2016. Ethics in the real world: 82 brief essays on things that matter. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Smith, P.J., S.G. Humiston, E.K. Marcuse, Z. Zhao, C.G. Dorell, C. Howes, and B. Hibbs. 2011. Parental delay or refusal of vaccine doses, childhood vaccination coverage at 24 months of age, and the Health Belief Model. Public Health Reports 126 (Suppl 2): 135–146. https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549111260S215.

Sommariva, S., C. Vamos, A. Mantzarlis, L.U.-L. Đào, and D. Martinez Tyson. 2018. Spreading the (fake) news: Exploring health messages on social media and the implications for health professionals using a case study. American Journal of Health Education 49: 246–255. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2018.1473178.

Southwell, B. G., E. A. Thorson, and L. Sheble. 2017. The Persistence and Peril of Misinformation. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-persistence-and-peril-of-misinformation. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Statt, N. 2019. China makes it a criminal offense to publish deepfakes or fake news without disclosure. https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/29/20988363/china-deepfakes-ban-internet-rules-fake-news-disclosure-virtual-reality. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.

Stewart, D.P. 1989. Internationalizing the war on drugs: The UN convention against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 18: 387.

Tandoc, E.C., Jr., Z.W. Lim, and R. Ling. 2018. Defining “fake news.” Digital Journalism 2: 137–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1360143.

Teachout, P.R. 2005. Making holocaust denial a crime: Reflections on European anti-negationist laws from the perspective of U.S. constitutional experience. Vermont Law Review 30: 655.

ten Have, H., and B. Gordijn. 2017. Publication ethics: Science versus commerce. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 20: 159–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-017-9774-1.

Terrasse, M., M. Gorin, and D. Sisti. 2019. Social media, E-health, and medical ethics. Hastings Center Report 49: 24–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.975.

Krishna, A., and T.L. Thompson. 2019. Misinformation about health: A review of health communication and misinformation scholarship. American Behavioral Scientist. September 2019.https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219878223

van Sliedregt, E. 2018. Criminalization of crimes against humanity under national law. Journal of International Criminal Justice 16: 729–749. https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqy027.

Walter, N., and S.T. Murphy. 2018. How to unring the bell: A meta-analytic approach to correction of misinformation. Communication Monographs 85: 423–441. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2018.1467564

Ward, J.K., P. Peretti-Watel, and P. Verger. 2016. Vaccine criticism on the Internet: Propositions for future research. Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics 12: 1924–1929. https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2016.1146430.

Waszak, P.M., W. Kasprzycka-Waszak, and A. Kubanek. 2018. The spread of medical fake news in social media: The pilot quantitative study. Health Policy and Technology 7: 115–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2018.03.002.

Wróbel, W., W. Zontek, and A. Wojtaszczyk. 2014. Kodeks karny: przepisy dwujęzyczne. Warszawa: Wolters Kluwer.

Zontek, W. 2018. Modele wyłączania odpowiedzialności karnej. Kraków: Krakowski Instytut Prawa Karnego Fundacja.

Titel: Do we need the criminalization of medical fake news?
verfasst von: Kamil Mamak
Publikationsdatum: 04.01.2021
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy / Ausgabe 2/2021
Print ISSN: 1386-7423
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-8633
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-020-09996-7

Springer Medizin

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu diesem Inhalt zu erhalten

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 2/2021

The poetics of vulnerability: creative writing among young adults in treatment for psychosis in light of Ricoeur’s and Kristeva’s philosophy of language and subjectivity

When do caregivers ignore the veil of ignorance? An empirical study on medical triage decision–making

What is the appropriate role of reason in secular clinical ethics? An argument for a compatibilist view of public reason

Vulnerability as a key concept in relational patient- centered professionalism

The hamster wheel: a case study on embodied narrative identity and overcoming severe obesity

Withdrawing critical care from patients in a triage situation