'I don’t believe in censorship' – Judith Collins stands firm over tweeting from ‘fake news’ site

August 7, 2018

The National MP accidentally tweeted a story from a fake news site, but says she takes the sentiment around the issue “extremely seriously”.

National's Judith Collins has continued to defend her decision to share a controversial story on social media from a site described as promoting "fake news".

When asked if she accepted the story about French consent laws she tweeted was fake news, Ms Collins said that "some of the information is correct and some of it, not quite". 

"But plenty of other stories like the Independent, the Guardian, Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph have run similar stories on the same thing."

Yesterday, Judith Collins tweeted an article titled: 'France Passes Law Saying Children Can Consent To Sex With Adults', and asked if Ms Ardern was willing to "denounce this legislation of child sexual abuse". 

It came from a news source that CBS News described as a 'fake news site'. 

"I thought it was an interesting story, I don't censor everything that I retweet and I retweet lots of things," Ms Collins said. 

Read more:  New Zealand is 'not immune' to fake news, says Jacinda Ardern, after Judith Collins' controversial tweet

National Party leader Simon Bridges said yesterday the topic was an issue Ms Collins "she felt strongly about, but she didn’t get her source right".

Ms Collins’ tweet has sparked concerns about the prevalence of fake news.

Ms Collins said she had not gone into the website itself, but had only seen the story. 

The Independent and Telegraph reported in May that France tightened laws on child rape, however did not set a minimum age for consent of sexual relationship with an adult, earlier planned to sit at 15. 

It meant a sexual relationship between a person under 15 is illegal, but if the threshold for rape was not met, a new offence of 'sexual violation by penetration' would be used. 

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