271
submitted 5 months ago by 0x815@feddit.org to c/news@lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/445597

A ban on politicians lying will be brought in before the 2026 Senedd [the Welsh parliament] elections, the Welsh government has promised.

Counsel General Mick Antoniw [...] promised that the law would disqualify Senedd politicians and candidates found guilty of deliberate deception from being a Member of the Senedd (MS). [...] It is not yet clear whether the proposed law would make lying a criminal offence or a civil sanction. [...] Mr. Antoniw said it was a "matter that goes to the heart of everyone".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 15 points 5 months ago

As much as I like the spirit of the idea, it honestly sounds pretty hard to enforce. What constitutes a mistake, bad memory, or a polished turd of a statement versus an act of deception?

[-] Jerkface@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

That's for the courts to deci-- oh, fuck.

[-] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I guess all public statements would essentially be "under oath" and would be held to that standard. So the questions would be 1) which statements are public and 2) what constitutes a lie.

It can be proven that someone has lied - for instance, if they have said something on the record previously that indicates they had foreknowledge that what they said was false. It'd be a large administrative burden, so I imagine that only consequential lies would be prosecuted. But the law would also be ripe for abuse - an opposing political faction could scrutinize everything a public official says, sue them for everything that wasn't true, and tie them up with court appearances and fees for a long time.

Anyway, it'd be very difficult to consistently enforce this law and prevent it from being abused.

this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
271 points (98.2% liked)

News

23627 readers
3224 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS