As our government becomes more and more polarized, what can we do to ensure that facts and data hold out?
I’m not suggesting that lying should be illegal (in fact, it’s often unintentional), but when an MPs statement can later be proven to be false, shouldn’t they be forced to publicly apologize?
The truth shouldn’t be political.
Fact check. If someone fact checks you and finds that your statement was false then you are sanctioned. It doesn’t have to be a magic bell. If someone’s fact checking team looks into what you said and comes back the next day and says “point of order, what xyz said yesterday was a lie and here is the proof” they get a sanction.
Where does exaggeration fit? Anti-vaxxers play up vaccine side effects. They happen, but very very rarely. If an MP spends a bunch of time talking about them and saying a vaccine is risky, they haven’t made a false statement.
On top of that, the Right has made political hay saying the media and Snopes are biased against them. Parties here would do the same.
Yes, they always complain that the fact checkers are all leftists and biased but they never set up their own fact checking. Go ahead and fact check the truth, I fucking dare you. Even if they did the actual fact checkers would fact check their fact checking and expose their meta lies.
Maybe they should have a points system. Exaggeration could be marked on a scale. You get so many exaggeration points and you get a sanction.
And how do you establish that is not a lie? Proof that a statement was false does not prove that the falsehood was stated intentionally. The person may have simply been misinformed, misspoke, or otherwise didn’t know any better, in which case it would not be a lie.