Truth in Political Advertising - Where the risks lie

While achieving truth in political advertising may be a virtue, there are real risks that the imposition of law to determine and enforce truth will actually make things worse.
This video looks at the practical problems with such laws in Australia. They cannot effectively deal with promises, opinions, predictions or even unverifiable assertions of fact. They can be easily avoided by formulating misleading or false material in a different way or publicising it by different means.
The laws themselves can be used as a means of giving greater and free publicity to misleading or false statements and they can be manipulated for political purposes, by a form of 'lawfare' that seeks to tie up one's opponent's resources and finances in dealing with legal challenges during an election campaign. A challenge to misleading advertisements, if it fails (eg because it contains opinions and predictions, rather than statements of fact), would no doubt be trumpeted as a finding that the misleading statements were true, adding to the original problem.
There is also a problem about who is the arbiter of truth, how it is decided and the timeliness of such decisions during an election campaign. Making such sensitive political judgments may undermine public confidence in the integrity and independence of the Electoral Commission and the courts.
Finally, there is the issue of the compatibility of such laws with the constitutionally implied freedom of political communication. All these problems suggest that a hard-headed assessment of such proposals needs to be made.
Apologies for the sound of squawking cockatoos around the end of the video. I have a very small window of time between when the builders next door stop jack-hammering and drilling and the birds start shrieking. Surprisingly, the cockatoos seem to be louder than most industrial machinery!

[@fraa-835]

This is the first Constitutional Clarion video Ive watched, and found it very enjoyable! cant wait to watch more! :)

[@constitutionalclarion1901]

There's plenty of existing material to watch too - 75 other videos in all. Enjoy!

[@glennsimpson7659]

@@constitutionalclarion1901 75 different coloured matched outfits! I’m impressed. Given the standard bookshelf background, it is an easy to keep track of different videos. I’ve seen 7 so far and am looking forward to the other 68. Wish these had been around 50 years ago - I might have achieved a HD in Con law.

[@MatthewSwift-xc8sn]

It is still not being truthful to the voters.

[@deepfried-pillow3484]

I don't know at what point I started eagerly anticipating the next Constitutional Clarion video but thats where I'm at now lol. Keep up the great work!

[@Joseph_Says77]

Can relate 🤣

[@user-uw8ru7eq5c]

Skilbidy grungus

[@georgeunderwood-bl9ug]

nerd

[@constitutionalclarion1901]

Thanks. I've plenty of material, so will keep going as long as I can record videos between periods of next door building work and squawking cockatoos and kookaburras!

[@DeGuerre]

One thing I do like about Australian electoral advertising is the authorisation statement. Yes, you might legally be able to say any nonsense you want, but you have to say who is responsible. Someone must stand behind the statement. That is useful information for an elector. A lot of misinformation today happens due to people passing things around privately via social media, and to a first approximation, nobody ever puts their name to the claims made therein. It seems to me that this is the greater risk in the current era.

[@constitutionalclarion1901]

Yes, the authorisation statements are really important in advertisements. Much more misinformation is spread on social media by people hiding behind anonymity who take no responsibility for it.

[@beakyfree7023]

Well done on another interesting clarion, and lovely jacket. You've gotten me curious of the past of regulatory standards of political advertising. Has there ever been a time or situation where, no party advertising was legal outside of heavily regulated and fact checked means?

[@constitutionalclarion1901]

In some countries, they banned electronic advertising for parties (i.e. on radio and television) other than free, strictly regulated, party statements. When Australia tried doing that it was struck down by the High Court in 1992 as unconstitutional, spawning the implied freedom of political communication.

[@beakyfree7023]

Interesting to imagine, had it passed, it would have changed everything. Probably for the better in my opinion.

[@davidbrown4849]

Yep, I'm intrigued that people think they can easily determine truth - Socrates, Zoroaster, etc, etc have been wrestling with that one for years. As Ann said, it's trivially easy to couch a political attack, with little actual substance, as opinion.

[@mullauna]

Thank you for including a text summary of what you talk about - the automatic captioning makes some silly mistakes.

[@MatthewSwift-xc8sn]

If it is understood that something may not be possible when saying it why is it not a lie if not saying it can only be acheived if circumstances dont change.

[@mariannesherry1397]

Very helpful information, but would love to hear some possible solutions to the problem of political parties/politicians providing misleading or inaccurate information via their "assertions, promises, opinions or predictions"... What would the legislation look like?

[@ameliabright3519]

Thanks as always for a great video! I have a question: Does the parliament have the power to recognise (or indeed, refuse to recognise) a foreign state by way of a motion? Does this power lie exclusively with the Department of Foreign Affairs? Or something else?

[@chriswatson7965]

Without seeing the case law, or any proposed legislation, I'll have to disagree with a point. In the SA legislation the offence occurs when a statement is purported as fact, not when facts are stated incorrectly. A key problem in political advertising is that statements of opinion or predictions are often presented in a manner that would be construed as fact by the casual listener. For example "the interest rates will be higher under ..." is not couched in such a way that it is an opinion eg: "it is our opinion" or "we predict", it is stated as though this a known thing. An educated person, who knows how interest rates occur, could deduce that this is an opinion couched as a fact, but someone relying on politicians for information would not be able to deduce that and would have to conclude that if denied by the other party one or the other would be lying with no way to differentiate. Communication in political advertising needs to be clear to the uneducated listener what is fact, what is opinion, and what is prediction.

[@constitutionalclarion1901]

Yes, it would be helpful for political communications to be clearer. But the problem still arises that you cannot determine that a statement is 'inaccurate and misleading to a material extent' if it is simply a prediction of what will happen in the future.

[@AusMarineRobotics]

Great Episode - upshot here is that truth in advertising laws are entirely pointless. Key issue is how to determine when a statement is a fact and not an opinion, prediction or a promise, given this is in most cases impossible. This also means most political debates that argue a politician lied or had spread misinformation is simply meaningless as this is almost always opinion based. Consider the widey recognised 'lie' of Donald Trump's that the Democrats 'stole' the 2020 US election. This cannot be a 'lie' since it is simply Trump's opinion that changes in state electoral law, voting processes and voter registration etc by Democrats favoured Democrats.

[@aaroncrooks2638]

What about if they at least made it so when they make an advertisement that they only do ads where they talk about themselves and their party and their Policies and not their opponents? I am not interested in what they say about their opponents.

[@constitutionalclarion1901]

Some restrictions can be placed upon advertisements (eg authorisations), but there might be a problem with the implied freedom of political communication if you prohibited parties for stating in advertising their views on the policies of others. It would be a matter for the courts to determine.

[@James-kv6kb]

Presented so we'll none of these long boring words that all the young people seem to use now just basic normal English .