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Broadcasting moratoriums are dangerous in a deepfake age and should be phased out

Imposing an artificial silence on the eve of elections undermines broadcasters and risks damaging democracy

Minister for Local Government Darragh O’Brien has told the broadcasting regulator that election moratoriums are 'ripe for manipulation'. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

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Laura Slattery
Tue May 14 2024 - 06:02

Elections beckon. European and local elections, but still. Before you know it, we’ll reach that moment when, having spent weeks delving into a cornucopia of campaign issues, schisms and gimmicks, the airwaves fall weirdly quiet, like when the tide goes out before a tsunami.

The broadcasting moratorium will have arrived, and with it a rash of stories about wild-swimming enthusiasts and innovative farming techniques. Never mind the vote, forget the candidates, take a look at this shoplifting cat. Then, just to cap off the strangeness, news bulletins will throw in a bland, cursory reminder that, yes, there are elections on tomorrow.

The political correspondents charged with delivering this strictly anodyne information will soon be forced to clamp their mouths shut, lest they or their employers are censured for breaking broadcasting regulations. Best to say as little as possible and take the opportunity to have a dinner that isn’t a Twix.

Elsewhere in the media, the countdown to the moratorium will become a story in itself. It might even be possible to pick up a sense of excitement about its approach, almost as if moratoriums, like tallies and 15th counts, are just part of quirky Irish election lore – something to fetishise on the basis that it is inherent to our democracy, like fighting over lamp-post space, or nepotism.

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But broadcasters hate moratoriums and most have done so for years. Ironically, they have difficulty getting anyone to listen to them on this.

They are, however, not the only ones to object to their imposition. While candidates desperate for votes are never going to love a phenomenon that temporarily deplatforms them, some politicians do have other, more serious concerns. Minister for Local Government Darragh O’Brien, for instance, has written to broadcasting regulator Coimisiún na Meán to warn that moratoriums could hand a free pass to any foreign and domestic sources intent on electoral interference.

“A targeted social media campaign from potential bad actors in the hours before and during polling can only be met with silence from the broadcast media. I believe this is ripe for manipulation,” O’Brien wrote.

[ Broadcast moratorium before elections is ‘ripe for manipulation’ by bad faith actors, says Darragh O’Brien ]

Coimisiún na Meán’s guidelines, for what it’s worth, state that broadcasters can continue to cover “legitimate news and current affairs stories that are unrelated to an election” during the upcoming moratorium – er, thanks – but that they should avoid “airing content (including breaking news stories) that the broadcaster believes is intended and/or likely to influence or manipulate voters’ decisions”. That’s a fairly major limitation.

Moratoriums, by obliging broadcasters to either cease reporting on election issues or, at best, wrap their coverage up in torturous constraints, only create the conditions that allow disinformation to thrive more easily. This danger, as the Minister noted, has been turbocharged by the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

One side effect of this multimedia world we all live in is that the bliss of a calm-before-the-storm period can no longer be relied upon anyway

I agree with him. The eve of an election has become the perfect time to stage a deepfake party.

So much of journalism today involves fact-checking an ever-churning mill of rumour, misinformation and disinformation and then making it explicit to news consumers that this is what you have done. But, as the rules stand, broadcasters are hampered by their ability to properly parse election-related material at precisely the most crucial time.

Online and print journalists, not subject to any moratoriums, can do it, of course, but it is not as if the Irish media is raining frontline journalists at the moment. Every foot soldier in the fact-checking war helps.

One side effect of this multimedia world we all live in is that the bliss of a calm-before-the-storm period can no longer be relied upon anyway. Exhausted broadcast journalists who would quite fancy a dinner that isn’t a Twix end up scrolling the night away, mentally filing how they will report the pre-election swirl once the moratorium finally lifts.

None of this should be surprising. Vacuums, famously, tend to be filled. This was the case in electoral politics even before the rise of the internet, social media and messaging apps. But the existence of these things has sped up the news cycle. Lies, as the now much-quoted old proverb goes, can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put its boots on. Any regulation that effectively unlaces those boots, slowing down the response, is less than ideal.

Moratoriums, in this way, are not only potentially damaging to democracy, they also risk hurting broadcasters, which must suddenly and artificially cease to be relevant when the clock strikes. A rule that was introduced in recognition of their influence on the outcome of elections only winds up undermining their standing.

Moratoriums are not just silly and outdated. They also threaten to become more counterproductive with each ballot

Moratoriums have got shorter. They used to cover the entire day before an election as well as election day itself up to the closing of polls. But after objections – notably from TV3, now known as Virgin Media Television – the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) moved the moratorium for the 2011 general election to 2pm on the day before the vote, allowing for one last lunchtime campaigning push on air.

Coimisiún na Meán, the BAI’s successor, has stuck with a 2pm moratorium for the upcoming June elections. But, significantly, a review is imminent, with the regulator planning to study the impact of this moratorium, then feed its research into a review of whether moratoriums should stay, go or be amended.

Pragmatically, even a moratorium applied from 10pm the night before voting day would make more sense than what we have now. But it would be better, and safer, to phase them out completely and to do so before the next general election. Because moratoriums are not just silly and outdated. They also threaten to become more counterproductive with each ballot.

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