Welsh government commits to making lying in politics illegal

Completely ridiculous and destructive to any political system. In any democratic system political conflict is also a conflict about determining truth, giving some institution the power to determine truth from lie puts far too much political power into that institution. That institution will naturally be a target for capture as it allows the criminal prosecution of the opposition.

This is a genuinely insane idea and goes against essentially all democratic thought, which always wanted to give political opposition some means of participation.

I strongly support this. Freedom of speech is not absolute and should carry civil liability and professional sanctions as determined by context, status of representation, and venue.

I would like to see how they enforce this. It would be nice to sanction deceptions whether by stupidity or deliberation.

On the other hand, I would not want to see somebody sanctioned because in the heat of the moment of a live debate they accidentally misstate some facts or incorrectly draw an inference. In that case the speech is not entirely truthful but there was no intention to deceive either. Debates seek to educate the electorate about a candidates mastery of the subject matter and their ability to qualify their position against a challenged response.

If this works at all, it will lead politicians to more isolation from facts, since you can’t lie about something you don’t know.

Also who is responsible if you transmit lie somebody told you as a fact.

Many wonder here in Germany if our politicians at the moment are somewhat less able mentally then they should be, but the root cause is their choice of information sources. If you got only people around you telling you one side of he story you do actually still believe that Ukraine is winning.

This is the single thing that would fix most democracy problems, I can't believe that someone is trying it!!!

(and have a even harder time believing that someone is against the idea)

How about, I don't know, midterm approval voting instead of some sort of crimethink law?

Whatever is considered, not is, a 'lie' is more or less arbitrary.

Looking forward to a ministry of truth.

How much of a politician's time is taken up by making public statements of the type this kind of legislation covers? At least for someone in power, surely only a small part.

If we can't trust politicians to tell the truth in public statements then that's the smaller problem. The bigger problem is: what are they doing the rest of the time when not in public? What kinds of decisions are they making and how are they exercising power? Being a liar and being a terrible leader goes hand in hand. This gives the impression of doing something useful when the best case scenario is that awful people can continue to exercise power, they just have to be a bit more careful what they say in public.

The real question is, how do you prevent terrible people from ending up in positions of power. But avoiding that requires changing how people come to power which nobody in power wants to do. So we get red herrings like this instead.

Not bothered at all by this. These people are sworn in as representatives, or registering in order to compete to be sworn in as representatives. The vote is as sacred as the courtroom. Politicians can be mistaken, politicians can have wildly different interpretations of the facts, but allowing them to deliberately lie is a choice. A bad one.

What case be made for perjury to be illegal and deliberate lying by politicians not illegal that doesn't prioritize the judiciary over the electorate? The choice is between rule by appointed elders or democracy, and our sovereignty, the legitimacy of our government, comes from democracy.

Politicians can even pretend to have wildly different interpretations of the facts in order to deceive the public. They had better not admit that they actually know the truth about those facts in their available communications, though.

edit: another benefit in the US would be that if political parties are fixing a primary, which they have every right to do as private organizations, they would not be able to coordinate this with the candidate themselves.

Lying to the electorate is as essential to democracy as lying to a jury is essential to the justice system.

This seems unworkable. I propose we eliminate politicians altogether.

I am kidding, but not entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

This seems to go against Parliamentary Privilege [1] where politicians have freedom of speech and are immune to prosecution for lying (or defamation, slander etc) during their official work.

Usually it's when a politician names an alleged criminal, oligarch, corporation etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_privilege_in_the...

Wild how the concept of basic accountability for deliberate obvious and egregious lies is breaking so many brains in here.

The way I see it, we either reign in the 'firehose of falsehood' style of electioneering, or we put our future in the hands of the best (ie, worst) liars.

"But if we had laws like this, how would we have ever invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? Would you jail Biden for lying about student loans and pandemic payments, or Obama for lying about Roe v Wade and Guantanamo?! 98% of our politicians would be jailed!!" ... Exactly.

The devil is certainly in the details with something like this - but to say it can't be done (without even trying) is defeatist.

They should make failing to keep promises in politics illegal. Truth can be a matter of debate but somebody doing something they explicitly promised not to, or failing to do something they promised, is pretty clear, and there's a wealth of contract law for determining it. If a vote is a contract then a broken promise is fraud.

And will there be any politicians who are not imprisoned after this?

Ahh, here they are: the default HN assumptions that foreign democracies are constructed from people who are either naïve, censorious or abusive, and incapable of nuance or restraint.

Lying in politics, in certain contexts, is already punishable: lying to parliaments has consequences the world over. Lying to Congress, lying to a British parliamentary committee, ministerial ethics codes that punish misleading parliament, lying to the Australian parliament, it's all punishable in various ways.

The big question to answer is this: why should a politician be able to tell a demonstrable lie using their official communications, without consequence? Their official social media presence, their official political status twitter feed.

Why should politicians not be expected to colour only within the lines, like we used to expect them to do in the era before social media?

What, exactly, is the problem with punishing a flat out, demonstrable lie by a politician? Why do people not imagine that a bipartisan/multipartite commission or an ombudsman can't manage that, when we have effective ombudsmen in the UK that ensure basic truth (that is, not flat out lies or misleading claims) in advertising, truth in financial services claims, laws that prevent lying about curing cancer etc.?

Why does everyone -- particularly US HNers -- have to assume measures like this are intrinsically fascist? Just because your own politics is infected with the spiritual offspring of Lee Atwater and Charles Coughlin doesn't mean we have to accept that same downward spiral in our own.

People in the UK believe politicians should want to be held to a higher standard, and we'd like them to try to get back to how they behaved before foreign social media platforms enabled them to lie at scale like drunken sailors with impunity.

This gives the people who decide what statements are "lies" too much power. Many politicians would like to silence the "lies" of their opponents.

All political reforms must be considered in context. I only know the USA, so am unqualified to comment about the Welsh proposals.

One folk (mis)understanding in the USA is that journalism will hold politicians to account. If that ever was the case, it's certainly not happening now.

We need something to counterbalance misinformation. Lest we succumb to mob rule and thereby forfeit our democracy to tyranny. h/t Aristotle

I'm completely fine with banning all political advertising. It serves zero purpose, is a net negative for society. Instead, candidates and parties would publish their agenda, platforms, proposed legislation, accomplishments, and misc critiques. They'd also have to focus on "the ground game", like doorbelling and townhalls.

Most campaign spending is on advertising. So next we eliminate most fund raising. Just publicly finance campaigns. It's cheaper (for society) overall.

Since > 2/3rds of a politician's time is spent fund raising, we just freed them up to do some actual legislating and governing. Woot.

I also want to establish trusts (or equiv) for investigative reporting. Just give journalists money (stipends) and see what they come up with. Like todays bloggers and podcasters, but without the patreon links. Publishers, editors, and other journalists will then pick up and boost worthy reporting. And the larger trusts (for research and publishing) can underwrite expenses as needed.

I'm bullish on innovations like Citizen Assemblies https://participedia.net/search?selectedCategory=all&query=c... and Citizen Juries. They're slow, deliberative democracy. Antithical to today's public discourse.

PS- At the end of the day, I support whatever reforms get our society to a multi-racial majoritarian democracy.

Politicians already speak in half truths, "give with one hand, take away with the other"... At most you'll get more polished half truths

You can't exactly fact check promesses, and politicians in power are already not held accountable for current laws, they just make commissions, inquiries, special counsels... until it goes away. Just another chess piece to be used in their political ping pong games, spending millions in the process, solving nothing

Haha, funny joke. It will totally happen, because as we all know that people in power are great at policing and restricting themselves.

And on that terrible disappointment, it's time to continue our usual life. (c)

Next Years headline: "Welsh rediscover strategic truth is worse than obvious manipulative lies"

In a macabre way, I kind of admire those that try to legislate morality in a democracy. Good luck =3

Truth is a social construct.

The use of fables, hyperbole, puffery or invoking of spiritual beliefs should not send a politician to jail.

Here's an opinion piece about the bipartisan penchant for lies in the recent debate:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/306784...

Most of us think one guy lied more and worse than the other. But which one can we trust to appoint the people who determine which were lies and which not? Me: neither.

>“That is an existential threat. A democracy starts to break down if the electors can’t trust what the elected say.

Politicians opening their mouth == lying. Covid had an awful lot of lying from the government. Mass surveillance by the government. Political promises which arent kept are lies.

But to give the sitting government the power to decide what is true and what is not will 100% of the time result in censorship of the opposition.

It will force political speech underground and create a huge polarization problem, until mandatory revolution.

I know this because im describing Canada.