Recently Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at a Harry Reid event concerning an “epidemic of fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year”. It is hard to know for sure what exactly this “fake news” she is referring to is, however, I want to address her idea of government legislation on the media. During her speech she stated that it is imperative that the government do something about this fake news because it can have real world influence. She is absolutely right that it can influence the world greatly, but I do take issue with the proposal that the government should get involved.

It is no secret that I have a lot of issues with America’s mainstream media. They give airtime to loudmouthed idiots and actually give them credibility rather than being journalists by pointing out the facts thus disabling his argument. When they host debates they seem much more interested in the shit throwing between the Republican and Democratic candidates in this terrible reality TV era “he said, she said” time that we are currently in rather than sticking to the issues that concern the American people. An example of this is CNN pretends to cut it right down the middle and be neutral when it comes to politics. While that is a nice sentiment, they fail to report the facts, which usually have a liberal bias. By doing that, they are not being truthful and are contributing to the ignorance of some Americans rather than educating them.

So, yes, we do have major issues with our current media, notably that they are currently as reliable as the tabloids on the wire rack in checkout lines. Does that mean that the government needs to be involved? Absolutely not. In fact, I feel that it would only make things worse. In China, people can be finned hundreds of thousands of dollars for distributing fake news. The Chinese government as anything that goes against them or happens to pull back the curtain to allow people to see what is really behind it defines this “fake news”. So basically, you can be finned in China for distributing real news. We do not live in a police state. We do have the freedom of speech where people are allowed to say any stupid shit that spews out of their mouths. Those people have every right to do that and it is the journalist’s job to correct it with facts. Getting the government involved would override the most fundamental of the freedoms we do have. This isn’t The Running Man (Stephen King’s book, not the shitty movie that’s based on it starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) or The Hunger Games. The government has no business in media what so ever (which is why I think that Donald Trump’s alliance with NBC to be the executive producer of The Celebrity Apprentice while he is in office as POTUS is a major conflict of interest).

Hillary Clinton is the last person who should be making this criticism. During the entire 2016 presidential election, she was constantly involved less than truthful smear campaigns against her opponents and constantly denied the fact that the WikiLeaks were truthful. For example, many of her supporters accused male Bernie Sanders supporters as being sexist despite the fact that Bernie is a major feminist and condemned those who supported her in opposition to Hillary based on the fact that she is a woman. That is real fake news and Hillary did nothing to stop that. I think I get it now: Hillary is only interested in stopping fake news that hurts her case and her reputation. But isn’t that what all of her campaign was about when it comes to Hillary Clinton: her reputation and her ego? During her entire campaign I heard the arguments “vote for Hillary because it is her turn” or “she will be the first woman president” as if any of that mattered when selecting the most powerful person in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see a woman president (such as Elizabeth Warren) but it must be the right one. During the primary election she spoke a lot about the Flint water crisis but once Bernie Sanders won the state of Michigan, she dropped the issue but that election was over. She works on an election-by-election basis and is only interested in being the first woman president, not helping the people. Sorry Ms. Clinton, but your criticisms on the media are invalid.