Experts expect 'explosion' of fake news for 2020 election, Trump calls to change libel law

WASHINGTON (SBG) - It came in the form of a tweet from journalist and New York University professor Ian Bremmer, who tweeted Sunday, "President Trump in Tokyo: Kim Jong Un is smart and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden."

The tweet caught the attention of the President halfway around the world, who tweeted that libel laws should be changed to "hold fake news media accountable," an echo of earlier sentiments.

Bremmer later apologized and deleted the tweet. He said on Twitter that it was made in jest, further stating that “The president correctly quoted me as saying it was a “completely ludicrous” statement.”

Libel laws are meant to protect public and private figures from false claims, but already go far enough, said David Rehr, a professor with the Schar School of Government at George Mason University.

We don’t want to minimize people's ability to express themselves because there's all sorts of pent problems when they can’t. That’s how revolutions happen,” Rehr said in an interview Tuesday.

Still, this comes as misinformation is spiraling out of control. In January 2018, President Trump said, “Our current libel laws are a sham.”

A video of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that gained attention over the weekend seemed to show her disoriented and slurring her words. But it turns out it was doctored and slowed down using decades old, easy to get equipment.

Experts say current law is no match for artificial intelligence which may be the next widely used tool, which would make it far more difficult to know what’s real and what’s fake.

I think we’re going to see an explosion of fake news in 2020," Rehr said.

Facebook has decided to leave the Pelosi video up on its site but with fact checker icons that pop up with the video. And while it and other social media giants have been aggressively removing fake accounts, their numbers continue to grow.

Five percent of Facebook accounts are fake, up from three to four percent previously.