Formal news broadcasts play a role in a lot of games that focus on story: Deus Ex: Human Revolution centers itself around the news broadcaster, and the game culminates in the decision of which news story to broadcast. Starcraft II’s Terran campaign allows the player to explore the storyline by watching news broadcasts. Borderlands 2 allows players to follow news broadcasts from different sources as the main storyline progresses. In each case, there is always a gap between the news story that is presented and the information the player has. Whether the news is explicitly propaganda, merely biased, or simply missing information, each game underscores the fallibility of the news as a primary source for information.
Subjectivity, bias, and context can change the interpretation of a news story. Words themselves can also be subject to changes in context and intent. The term “Fake News” gained fame when used by Trump to accuse CNN of, essentially, being left-of-center. However, it has more recently been used to refer to Russian hackers spreading propaganda and disinformation on Facebook and other social media under the guise of non-biased, traditional-style newsmedia.
Trademarks: How We Know What is From Whom
The goal of trademarks is to reduce consumer confusion by establishing clear connection between goods/services and the manufacturer/provider. This consumer knowledge is considered essential to a healthy marketplace and – in many cases—to consumer safety. Applying the same fundamental concepts of trademark law to telecommunications law might have a positive effect on combating certain forms of so-called “Fake News.” By requiring each news source to register digital certificates with social media platforms, consumers could be more confident in the source of their information. The information may still carry the biases of the institution, editor, or author of the news piece, but the consumer would be aware of that possibility from the initial contact with the article or video. Just as trademarks do not enhance the quality of a good or service, digital certification would not ensure high-quality, un-biased news containing only perfect information. Similarly, even under robust trademark law, counterfeiting (and other violations) do occur. There would be a risk of various hacking attacks that would allow “Fake News” to be published under the name of a news source that did not actually produce it. However, such a hack can be addressed and corrected in ways that are not possible in a news marketplace without identifying information for news releases.
Trademark law may even be brought to bear directly on the Fake News problem. News outlets often develop their own styles and designs that remain consistent over time, eventually becoming associated in the minds of consumers with the outlet. This could be interpreted as trade dress, and a case could be made that this is a type of intellectual property subject to legal protection. Enforcement of this would likely be very difficult against foreign, anonymous violations, but creating a culture of more regimented, clearly defined news outlets would be beneficial in helping consumers spot outliers that don’t fit the known news providers—and treat such new providers with appropriate scrutiny and supplemental research.
philogames 