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Political Ad Reform
| March 25th, 2021 at 12:50:26 PM permalink | |
| rxwine Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 189 Posts: 18764 | I suppose this is unconstitutional...but I still like the idea. Here goes. Anyone running a political ad could choose to purchase "lie insurance" for 25 cents. "Lie insurance" means that you can't be fined $10,000 dollars if any provable lie is found in your ad. The point is not who purchases "lie insurance" but who runs ads without it. It's a sad state of affairs and shouldn't be true that most political ads probably have provable lies, but it would be great to see who actually runs an uninsured ad, daring to only tell provable facts about themselves or their opponent. Of course it would be made public who buys insurance and who doesn't so everyone is informed. You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really? |
| March 25th, 2021 at 4:34:49 PM permalink | |
| Gandler Member since: Aug 15, 2019 Threads: 27 Posts: 4256 | This is an interesting point. You cannot lie on advertisements and can be subject to a fine if you do (in some cases jail time). However, first amendment protected activities (religion, politics, and books) are exempt from these regulations. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2019/11/06/why-dont-truth-in-advertising-laws-apply-to-political-ads The FTC can not pursue charges related to political, religious, or book-related mispresentations (or blatant lies). Its not politically related, but I remember first hearing about this relating to Kevin Trudeau (basically a career charlatan who would buy informercials for all kinds of nonsense from weight loss pills to miracles cures, etc.... you know the type). He was banned form the FTC from infomercials after being a blatant fraud. Apparently he is still the only person in history to be banned from advertising on TV to this date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Trudeau#2007:_FTC_contempt_of_court_action However, he got around this until relatively recently (he is finally in jail for a long time) by advertising books and their contents which is protected free speech. (I actually learned about this from John Stossel when he was still a consumer reporter). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN5ihrECJms So to answer your question, no, political ads, religious ads, and even book ads can blatantly lie on TV and radio and not much can be done. They are off limits to the FTC. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2019/11/06/why-dont-truth-in-advertising-laws-apply-to-political-ads |