How Do Politicians Keep Getting Away With Lies and Misinformation on Social Media?

There’s a good reason why politicians rank among the least trustworthy public figures in American life these days. They tell lies. Lots of lies. And when confronted with those lies, they lie again. Unfortunately, social media is only enabling this type of behavior.

Spreading misinformation and disinformation across social media does not just happen during major elections, either. Every day, politicians use social media to cover up their policy flip-flops. One day, a politician is in favor of a certain issue. The next day, he or she is not. All that matters, it seems, is coming up with a policy position that will do well in the polls or with sponsors, so that they can win the next election.

Wasn’t social media supposed to fix this problem?

To their credit, every single major social media platform now has extensive policies in place, all of them designed to cut down on the amount of misinformation and disinformation out there. Meta has specific rules on misinformation and disinformation. YouTube has specific rules on media manipulation. TikTok has rules on the use of threats, harassment, and intimidation online. The list goes on and on. Almost every possible abuse has been covered.

These social media policies have attracted a lot of attention ever since the 2016 presidential election, when the “Russian bot” conspiracy went into overdrive. According to the Democrats, the only way a citizen in America would vote for President Donald Trump is if Russian bots got into the act, publishing all manner of lies, disinformation, and misinformation across social media. So, as might be imagined, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went out of his way to prove that his social media platform played no role in Trump’s election win.

And, really, for the past decade, every big social media platform has been doing everything in their power to cut down on all the harmful content out there. They’ve placed warning labels next to some content. They’ve used third-party fact-checkers. They’ve appointed ombudsmen (and ombudswomen). They’ve hired new staffers, and created entire departments dedicated to misinformation and disinformation.

So why hasn’t anything seemed to work? In the most recent 2024 presidential election, there were complaints directed against the big social media platforms, who were accused of tipping the scales in one direction or another. It got so bad, in fact, that some of these social platforms refused to accept political campaign ads of any kind, just to avoid even the perception of wrongdoing.

Will stronger social media policies really work?

Let’s face it, the current approach of publishing a bunch of rules and policies isn’t going to work. Even an aggressive step like banning or de-platforming individuals will not work. They are just going to pop up somewhere else, potentially on a social media platform that they own, or that one of their buddies owns. 

Look no further than President Trump, who now uses Truth Social for his most important social media updates. He also has (or had) the support of billionaire Elon Musk and the use of his X social media platform. If a voice is loud enough, there will always be someone willing to platform them.

What might be a possible solution? 

At the end of the day, maybe it’s not the social media platforms to blame. Maybe it’s the political system itself. In an era when creating and publishing content has never been easier, there’s absolutely no way the big social platforms are going to be able to catch all the lies and disinformation out there. For that to happen, the entire system needs to change.