I am very pessimistic about this—my assumption is the state will use it to attack its enemies, even when they make true statements, while ignoring the falsehoods of its allies.
I think the example in the article is pretty strong evidence of this. They claim a politician is guilty of a “direct lie” for saying that a policy would entitle illegal immigrants to £1,600/month of welfare. The claim is somewhat misleading, because illegal immigrants would not be the only ones entitled. But it is true that some of those entitled would be illegal immigrants, and their inclusion was a deliberate policy choice.
If this is the canonical example they’re using to illustrate the rule, rather than something more objective and clear-cut, this makes me very pessimistic it will actually be applied in a truth-seeking manner. Rather this seems like it will undermine rational decision making and democracy—the state can simply declare opposition politicians to be liars and remove them from the ballot, preventing voters from course-correcting.
Welsh government commits to making lying in politics illegal
This sounds awesome at first blush, would love to see it battle-tested.
I am very pessimistic about this—my assumption is the state will use it to attack its enemies, even when they make true statements, while ignoring the falsehoods of its allies.
I think the example in the article is pretty strong evidence of this. They claim a politician is guilty of a “direct lie” for saying that a policy would entitle illegal immigrants to £1,600/month of welfare. The claim is somewhat misleading, because illegal immigrants would not be the only ones entitled. But it is true that some of those entitled would be illegal immigrants, and their inclusion was a deliberate policy choice.
If this is the canonical example they’re using to illustrate the rule, rather than something more objective and clear-cut, this makes me very pessimistic it will actually be applied in a truth-seeking manner. Rather this seems like it will undermine rational decision making and democracy—the state can simply declare opposition politicians to be liars and remove them from the ballot, preventing voters from course-correcting.