How can societies combat the stream of false, often fabricated information that surges across the internet and through social media, polluting political debates almost everywhere?
That question has bedeviled defenders of democracy at least since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And at a New Year's press conference outside the Elysee Palace this month, French President Emmanuel Macron offered his own answer.
Macron's goal, it seems, is to curtail "fake news" by law. He is promising that, by the end of the year, he will introduce a bill to crack down on those spreading misinformation during any election period.