Absence of political advertising regulations, unacceptable

For the last year and a half, the American people have been bogged down with advertisements, one after the other, with their sole purpose being to either promote one certain politician or attack an opposing one. With many ads being labeled as lies or not truthful in some way, one would think that there should be some type of guideline or restrictions to follow when a political advertisement is being made.

The actual regulations that political advertisements must follow is actually quite sweeping in scope and in-depth. There are numerous articles for making sure that all people who contributed towards the making of the advertisement are always cited in some way (whether it be a print ad, television and everything in between) and various other procedures to let one know when a disclaimer is necessary for the ad.

But when it comes to the things most people would think that regulation is necessary for – primarily when it comes to making false claims or the budget allowed – the current laws are quite lenient if they exist at all. The official FEC website that contains all of the regulations for political advertising does not have any laws that specifically mention anything of false claims, meaning that a politician can make any statement they wish to in an advertisement and there would be no defined legal punishment for doing so.

The result of this means that anyone could make a political advertisement, say anything that they may want to and there would be no repercussions at the legal level. The only thing that cannot be put on a political ad are direct threats – and then the list stops existing. The government has regulation upon regulation to clear up any confusion on how to cite sponsors in an advertisement, but nothing about false and libelous claims.

That would be of no issue in the long run if a lot of advertisements were not made to sway the undecided vote. A report from The Monkey Cage by John Sides from George Washington and Lynn Vavreck from the UCLA found some very interesting things based on the 2012 election. “They assert that back-loading – airing ads close to the election – was actually more effective than front-loading – airing ads early in the campaign – if the goal was to influence voters on Election Day.”

What the report seems to suggest is the idea that political advertisements work at their best before the election and primarily on undecided voters. The implications of this are enormous. Voters could very easily vote for a person they otherwise would not have voted for because they saw a political ad about them. Even worse, they could elect an official into office based on lies from these advertisements and there would be no consequence to those who made the ad in the first place.

However, it is not like there are not any good reasons for such little restrictions. It is in complete alignment with the First Amendment that promises all Americans the freedom of speech. People on social media and the Internet as a whole do a very good job of spreading any misinformation. You can not hold a politician responsible for what their followers do, after all.

But that is just the issue: the people spread the lies. They spread them because that is what they see on their TVs, on their phones and because it is what they hear around them. The majority of people in America do not care about whether or not what they hear about a politician is true – only that they heard that something awful about them.

These advertisements do their job just fine, but that is exactly the issue. If political ads can say nearly anything they please and the people that make them can get away with it, then it is clear to see that the policies are in need of reform.