Burma, Syria, Cambodia, China, Russia - human rights abusers around the globe are thanking Trump

[Professor Emeritus]

for popularizing the "fake news" meme so they can use it to discredit journalists who say anything they don't want people to hear.

Now, Trump didn't actually coin the term "fake news", but he has turned it from its original meaning of "made-up stories" to now mean "any reporting other than that which I want my supporters to hear."

And human rights abusers around the world are loving it.

For instance, Trump says things like:

.@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!

And human rights abusers immediately jump on his words to discredit CNN International and anyone else who reports their abuses:

Cambodia

"Donald Trump’s ban of international media giants … sends a clear message that President Trump sees that news published by those media institutions does not reflect the real situation. Freedom of expression must be located within the domain of the law and take into consideration national interests and peace."

When asked what would happen to a media outlet that does not heed this warning, Siphan said “Shut it down, very simple. Expel them”.

- Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers of Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge fighter who has controlled Cambodia for 20 years and is accused of numerous human rights abuses. Sen has now charged Radio Free Asia journalists with "espionage" and expelled from the country those journalists whose reporting he didn't like

Libya

US President Donald Trump has opened a "big hole" in the wall of international accusations against Libya of what has been called "slavery" in parts of Libya against African migrants. Trump's claim in his twitter that opened the door to an internal US debate about the channel's credibility and questioned the credibility of many of its reports.

US President Trump accused the US channel of being a bad image of the United States and Americans abroad, while accusing it of tweeting what he called "the fake news." Trump is seen as the first US president to accuse a US television channel of the kind of accusations. This can be a legal and political input to refute many of the reports published by the American channel from many parts of the world. Trump's rules can be established to prosecute the channel in international courts because of its report.

Libyan media directly using Trump's attacks against CNN to deny CNN's reporting on slave auctions in the country

Also mimicking Trump's "fake news" language:

Burma

Just by seeing this, the spread of false news has great effect. But we firmly believe that people of politically influencing show their contempt on us not due to the effect of those fake news. They know most of the news are false, however, they themselves like things to happen in this way. That’s why they make themselves known as if they accept rampant news that are mostly false. What I mean is that we are in the midst of media world and we are attack by powerful media”.

The Burmese state-sponsored media continuing the official proclamations that Burma's well-documented campaign of ethnic cleansing isn't actually happening at all.

Burma

“There is no such thing as Rohingya,” said U Kyaw San Hla, an officer in Rakhine’s state security ministry. “It is fake news.”

Now even regular Burmese citizens are straight-up claiming that people who lived there just five years ago never existed.

Syria

“You can forge anything these days...We are living in a fake news era."...Challenged over the issue, Assad grew contentious, saying at one point, “You own the questions. I own the answers.”
Assad at first suggested the photos may have been edited and “Photoshopped.” Shown an FBI report concluding that the photos were not manipulated and appeared to depict “real people and events,” Assad dismissed it. “If the FBI say something, it’s not evidence for anyone, especially for us,” he said.

Syrian president Assad responding to a photo-documented Amnesty International report estimating that around 10,000 prisoners were killed in a “calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution” at a military prison between 2011 and 2015.

Russia and China have also picked up on the "fake news" tagline to discredit news that it doesn't like, and last year a record 21 journalists were imprisoned for reporting what their states claimed was "fake news", mostly in Egypt and Turkey.

Even his idiot tweets are making the world a worse place.

The Real-World Consequences of 'Fake News'

 

[Mythical Truth]

Well, US is also a well known human rights abuser.

 

[BoBurnz]

Real quality list of folks we're rolling with now