France's President Macron Wants to Block Websites During Elections to Fight 'Fake News'

As tech giants grapple with how to detect and scrub misinformation and propaganda from their social media platforms, French President Emmanuel Macron has a more extreme approach: Block the whole damn website.

In a speech to journalists on Wednesday, Macron said he planned to introduce new legislation to strictly regulate fake news online during political campaigns. His proposal included a number of measures, most drastically “an emergency legal action” that could enable the government to either scrap “fake news” from a website or even block a website altogether, the Guardian and Politico reported.

“If we want to protect liberal democracies, we must be strong and have clear rules,” Macron said. “When fake news are spread, it will be possible to go to a judge … and if appropriate have content taken down, user accounts deleted and ultimately websites blocked.”