The campaign for the UK Brexit referendum or the 2016 US presidential election campaign were marked by the central importance of social media and the emergence of what is now called fake news. In many ways, today's political, public and mediatic discourse seems to have entered a post-truth era, where distortion of facts, manipulation and approximation for malicious purposes are commonplace. At the same time, traditional media and journalism are under violent attack. At a time when a law designed to combat the production and propagation of these new factors of "misinformation" is being prepared, this book provides the general public with an informed synthesis on the question: what risks do fake news really pose to democracy, in France as elsewhere? Is it possible to control them? What legislative changes are possible?
