When I was teaching, Free Speech discussions would frequently evoke a question from students appalled by the massive amounts of disinformation enabled by the Internet and social media: “Can’t we at least outlaw lying?” I would have to explain that courts would have great difficulty determining the difference between what is a lie and what is a mistake, etc. The practical problems of such an effort would be insurmountable.
More to the point, the First Amendment rests on reliance upon the “marketplace of ideas.” Bad ideas and lies are to be countered by better ideas and facts. It is a theory that depends upon the participation of We the People.
It isn’t working very well right now, and I see no simple solutions. Neither does Bill Adair, who founded Politifact. In a recent essay for the Atlantic, he explored the failure of that fact-checking site to combat the firehose of propaganda and lies that distort our political lives.
For American politicians, this is a golden age of lying. Social media allows them to spread mendacity with speed and efficiency, while supporters amplify any falsehood that serves their cause. When I launched PolitiFact in 2007, I thought we were going to raise the cost of lying. I didn’t expect to change people’s votes just by calling out candidates, but I was hopeful that our journalism would at least nudge them to be more truthful.
I was wrong. More than 15 years of fact-checking has done little or nothing to stem the flow of lies. I underestimated the strength of the partisan media on both sides, particularly conservative outlets, which relentlessly smeared our work. (A typical insult: “The fact-checkers are basically just a P.R. arm of the Democrats at this point.”) PolitiFact and other media organizations published thousands of checks, but as time went on, Republican representatives and voters alike ignored our journalism more and more, or dismissed it. Democrats sometimes did too, of course, but they were more often mindful of our work and occasionally issued corrections when they were caught in a falsehood.
After exploring some theories about why politicians lie–the calculus that they apparently apply to determine the ratio of risk to reward– Adair notes that today’s extreme political polarization encourages them to do little else.
Now that many politicians speak primarily to their supporters, lying has become both less dangerous and more rewarding. “They gain political favor or, ultimately, they gain election,” said Mike McCurry, who served as White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton. As former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey told me, “It’s human nature to want to get a standing ovation.” Lies also provide easy ammunition for attacking opponents—no opposition research required. They “take points off the board for other candidates,” said Damon Circosta, a Democrat who recently served as the chair of North Carolina’s Board of Elections.
Adair notes that partisan media, especially on the right, fosters lying by degrading our shared sense of what’s real. These outlets expect politicians to repeat favored falsehoods as the price of admission. If you’re not willing to participate in the twisting of facts, you simply won’t get to speak to the echo chamber.
Tim Miller, a former Republican operative who left the party in 2020, pointed out that gerrymandering, particularly in red states, has made it so “most of the voters in your district are getting their information from Fox, conservative talk radio … and so you just have this whole bubble of protection around your lies in a way that wouldn’t have been true before, 15 years ago.”
Adair uses Mike Pence as an example of the way today’s political incentives change people. They had been neighbors when Pence was in Congress, and Adair saw him then as “a typical politician who would occasionally shade the truth.” When he was Indiana governor, Adair watched his lies grow. “By the time he became Donald Trump’s vice president, he was almost unrecognizable to me.”
The question, of course, is “what can we do?” Here are Adair’s closing paragraphs:
If politicians lie because they believe they’ll score more points than they’ll lose, we have to change the calculus. Tech and media companies need to create incentives for truth-telling and deterrents for lying. Platforms of all kinds could charge higher ad rates to candidates who have the worst records among fact-checkers. Television networks could take away candidates’ talking time during debates if they’re caught lying.
But these reforms will demand more than just benign corporate intervention. They’ll need broad, sustained public support. Voters may not be willing to place truthfulness over partisan preference in every case. But more will have to start caring about lies, even when their candidate is the culprit.
Amen.
The Founding Fathers could not have foreseen our world of high tech communication when they wrote the First Amendment, just as they could not see the dangers of an AR15 in the hands of everyday citizens or the corruption and politicization of the Supreme Court. Try as we might to keep the rule of law in our tangled, litigious and complicated world we may well have reached a point where the Constitution and the Bill of Rights need to be thought out again. We currently need new clear rules for our form of self government because what we are trying to operate under now is not working.
I don’t know about anybody else, but I feel guilty when I tell a lie. Many of the so-called conservatives claim to be Christian, yet their politicians are constantly lying, and they repeat those lies as truths. How do these professional liars do so without consequences – guilt and remorse?
As the famed economist Jeffrey Sachs would say, “Washington is now full of sociopaths.”
I suppose alcohol and drugs work for those who aren’t sociopaths. Pence was always able to lie without flinching, which spelled sociopath to me. When George S. caught him lying over RFRA, Mike acted disgusted that George called him out. This is the same thing JD Vance did recently during his debate with Walz when he was corrected for lying. He told the moderator, “The rules I agreed upon for this debate is there would be no fact-checking.”
Before I go further, the Biden administration is also a professional liar covered up by the media. The speakers for the Defense Department, State Department, and White House lie so often, sometimes by intentional omission, that it’s embarrassing. How do they always get promoted to the top in our government or media outlets?
Elon Musk owns one social media outlet, and his lying has gone off the charts this past year. He gets tens of thousands of shares, so you can extrapolate the infinite lying that takes place there within that bubble.
Do you know the one who is consistent in all of this? Few independent journalists have the insight to see the lies on both sides and have the guts to point them out. If both sides are lying for their supporters, those who point out the lies of both parties don’t get called by either media channel too often. If you follow Jeffrey Sachs, you’ll understand what I mean. He’s been cut off so many times for telling the truth; it’s hilarious.
If our so-called constitutional free press (the fourth Branch of Government) were doing its job and holding the other branches of government accountable, there wouldn’t be bubbles or sides in the media. Lying politicians would be slammed across the board, and corruption would be weeded out. Dark networks would not exist since they would be flushed out. There would not be “right and left media outlets.”
There would be a free press. Period.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” So said Samuel Clemens. It seems like tfg can only do the first two, which should be eminently easy to fact check in real time.
I watched the Vice Presidential debate in horror. It was clearly won by Vance, who was glib and even affable. What was horrifying was the fact that nearly every word out of his mouth was a damned lie. CBS, sadly, had made it clear that they wouldn’t fact check. That seems antithetical to journalism to me. Am I wrong?
Todd,
To understand how the liars lie, I highly recommend one of Clemens’
best short stories: “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.”
Theresa; how could the Founding Fathers have seen what we are facing today when we couldn’t see it 10 years ago. They were living their own lies at the time by owning slaves while claiming freedom for this nation and its people. So many people ignored, laughed at and denied the possibility of Donald Trump and his MAGAs reaching the heights we are seeing today. We were too strong, too proud of our democracy and believed we would always have the Constitution to protect us from any Dictator ruling this nation. They claimed victory over Rule by Royalty when the Revolutionary War ended and then claimed victory over slavery when the Civil War ended. Those victories came when the majority united to uphold the United States of America; now families, friends and neighbors are fighting among themselves in a political war founded on lies and calling it Christianity. Will the Catholics ruling the Supreme Court uphold Trump’s King James version of the Bible which includes the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? Only $60 will buy you protection from Democrats, democracy, Rule of Law and the Constitution of the United States of America which he includes in his escalating “Politics of Lying” presidential campaign.
I suggest the political parties must assume responsibility for their candidates and the truth. However, I suggest, the worst and most damaging lies begin with anonymous posters on social media and weave their way to the politicians. I believe much of the problem could be eradicated by making it illegal to post on social media without the use of one’s legal name. No more screen names. There would be no government review of the content, so no First Amendment violation. If I have to use my Passport to vote under Voter ID, let’s create “Poster ID.”
I like “Poster ID.”
Did Vance even recognize that his comment amounted to admission that he was lying? I urge the relevant broadcasters to refuse to put on a “Show” with no fact checking! Otherwise it’s nothing but for “Show!”
If tfg goes down in smoke, in Nov., perhaps there will be a better chance to get rid of this form of pestilence.
Technology has enabled people to spread lies at the same speed as truth and instantly reach everyone instantly. That problem is for us to solve, not blame technology.
What’s the root cause of people accepting self-serving lies as the truth? What can protect whole countries from falling to it?
That technology’s net effect is the speed of information propagation. Lies do not get filtered during mouth-to-ear transmissions. They travel right around that filtering process and go directly from the liar’s mouth to everyone’s ear without repeated telling.
Whole political movements are based on nothing else. Consider the damages wrought by Brexit. They will last for decades, even centuries, and are based on a premise containing no truth at all.
The US is now falling for the same lie that we can exist on our own earth independent of all other human tribes. Will we fall for it as Great Britain did? Did we not learn anything from the fall of another great country?
Kudos to you Sheila, for bringing up one of the most salient issues we face today. It coincides with the question of just who are all of these people who are willing to hold their noses while casting their vote for inveterate liar trump. And while there is misinformation – oops, a mistake, my bad, or exaggeration/hyperbole – uh, whatever, everyone does it, there is also disinformation – intentional, unacceptable, aka outright lying. The former president has always excelled at pushing the boundaries, testing the acceptable edges, using unending litigation to prolong and much of the time outlast the long line of opponents of his craven tactics. The lies exposed in this daily routine are in the thousands – 40,000 or so to date I remember seeing in one newspaper report – and follow his strategy of relentless repetition. Many folks end up believing things they hear repeated enough times, be it phony conspiracies or other outright lies. And once they have been uttered, removing them from the brain is nearly impossible.
One response concluded that there has been lying on both sides of the political aisle. While that may be true, the trump maga gang is so much better at it, and use it so much more often, that in my mind they own it.
I like the idea of finding ways to foster truth and deter lies. Unfortunately, it just makes me circle around to related problems that are currently intractable. The MAGA gang don’t even _care_ if they are lying. It’s completely immaterial to them. You can watch person-on-the-street videos (with The Good Liars and others) where the interviewer attributes one of Trump’s horrid acts or statements to Joe Biden, and asks them to comment. They’ll react with outrage and anger and want accountability, of course. Then, the interviewer will say “Whoops, my mistake, I meant it was Trump that said/did that.” On a dime, they’ll turn to rationalising and even glorifying the act.
So today’s conversation feels like… looking around at a bunch of people who have built their houses out of gasoline-soaked rags and thinking: “You know, we really need to reform and improve the fire department.”
if you read German news wire, like DW.com you will find how the German constitution does not allow for misinfo,and especially nazi anything. it works. were to far in the gutter with this whole social media craze. its allowed to show,how education,religion and racial divisions have come hand and hand with todays hate.. ya cant fix stupid as we truckers say.unfortunatly most i deal with follow with stupid. the German laws are quite direct,you dont speak out to comfront in a way that will cause harm. here in NoDak, givin the finger is called confrontational. and can be concivted as harassment. no one enforces it. unless you wind up sucker punched for it. so hense we allow any and all head bangers who need free ink to show the people how damn stupid they sound. now, lets do this, add the address and known cell number to anyone who uses the any social media,and see how fast they shut up..keep the first amendment,but lets try a German style law baring hate speech,,