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Comment by hackyhacky | Hacker News Reader

I agree. Fabricating damaging information on the eve of an election is easier than ever, and impossible to correct. Allowing propagation of such fabrications is to be complicit with the bad actors responsible.

Disinformation could be tolerated if we, as a society, have the time and means to determine its veracity. But with the ticking clock of an election, disinformation is too easy.

Some countries have laws prohibiting any political news stories in the run-up to an election for precisely this reason.

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So, what do you suppose? Prohibition of political news stories leading up to an election?

Have you heard of an October surprise?

"On October 20, 1880, shortly before the 1880 presidential election, a forged letter was published purportedly written by James A. Garfield voicing support for Chinese immigration to the United States. At the time, most white Americans opposed Chinese immigration and both presidential candidates were in favor of immigration restrictions.[3]"

And a list of many more.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise

> So, what do you suppose? Prohibition of political news stories leading up to an election?

That's exactly what I propose, precisely because October surprises are not in the best interest of democracy.

Many countries [1] prohibit all political news stories during their election cycle. An added benefit of this policy would be to limit the length of the election cycle.

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

Election silence is unenforceable and becomes muddy in the era of the internet - with elections in USA, who do you sue if UK news outlet runs with some story? Who has jurisdiction? Besides, reporting news itself is usually still allowed as long as it is not political agitation ("Biden did something bad" is ok, "vote Trump" is not). I've been tempted to test this by posting agitation to Facebook from the USA (Poland still has election silence) or showing up with slogans to the polling stations (you can still vote when abroad in a few places set up by consulates), but I still like to visit my family from time to time.

If you're worried about the interests of democracy then I would think freedom of speech would be important.

And the majority of the prohibitions in the list are a very short time frame from 24-48 hours.

> Allowing propagation of such fabrications is to be complicit with the bad actors responsible.

Years of "sources says" later disproved. Russia this, Russia that. And it's only now that we should stop propagation of unverified stories?

That just moves the date, because responses hit that deadline.

Without your proposed law: Stuff shows up 2 weeks before the election.

With a 10-week blackout: Stuff shows up 12 weeks before the election. (2 weeks before the blackout)

this is a good point, but I would not be surprised if the more recently someone hears a piece of information, the more impactful it is on their decisions. I would attribute this to not only individuals memory but also the amount of distractions within the 10 weeks (in your example) that would take away peoples focus.

Just an inclination, not sure how much of this would be supported by the literature if there is any

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