In this political season, there is one question that needs no poll: Rahil Prakash is a liar. The other thing we know is that he will likely get away with spreading fake polling results. Lies can be protected speech under the First Amendment and, while Prakash would not likely want to take a popularity poll, he is unlikely to face legal consequences for his “short-term social experiment.”
We still do not know much about the 21-year-old college graduate who reportedly admitted to releasing fake polling in the last election cycle.
What we do know is that he succeeded, and such polls can influence critical campaign decisions. For example, his poll put the Democratic Socialist up by 20 points in Wisconsin, and she surprised many by spending the final days campaigning in rural areas where she was expected to do worse. (She would lose by less than 1% of the vote). It is unclear where, had Hong known how close the race was, she would have spent the final days in higher-yield urban districts.
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The story laid bare the vulnerability of modern polling, which was again wildly wrong in predictions in various races during the primaries. However, it also highlights a novel question of potential liability for knowingly spreading falsehoods. In this case, Prakash wanted the lie to spread and likely succeeded beyond his wildest imagination.
He told The Guardian that “I wanted to see if fake polls could really penetrate the ecosystem that easily. And as it turned out, it could.” He created a website called Median Strategies and released fake polls in Democrat primaries in the Wisconsin governor’s race, the Los Angeles mayoral race, and two statewide Nevada races. The polls were quickly picked up and spread throughout the “ecosystem.”
He explained to the Guardian how easy it was: “I think my overall takeaway was that if you just make it look a bit pretty, it’s rather easy for it to spread.”
We do not know if Prakash had a political motive in showing certain candidates dominating in certain races.
He reportedly denied using his fake polls to play betting sites as part of the prediction market. He also denied being compensated or directed by any campaign to run the hoax.
That matters because using lies for financial gain can be a form of fraud. However, just being a liar is protected.
In United States v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act and held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies.
The case shows the dividing line. Xavier Alvarez was protected in claiming to have won the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as marrying a Mexican movie star, playing for the Detroit Red Wings, and rescuing the ambassador in the Iranian hostage crisis. However, if he had used those claims to receive veteran benefits or donations, he could have been prosecuted.
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Many of us in the free speech community supported that decision and still oppose censorship systems that target what governments decide is disinformation, misinformation, or malinformation. Anti-free speech figures have long justified censorship by declaring views as false or dangerous.
While apologizing to a few campaigns for misleading them, Prakash still seems perfectly clueless about the ethics and impact of lying in elections. Indeed, he seems to entirely remove himself from the problem of spreading lies: “I hope it gives a really good lesson going forward in that we need to be very serious about these things and very serious in how, if one person can do this, what can a serious operation do in the future – a real, you know, operation for an organization, country, whatever.”
Yeah, whatever.
The most revealing aspect of this controversy is not that some polling seems to lack any factual foundation for its predictions, but that some people lack any moral foundation for their actions. We have seen similar sites put out fake stories. Some do so for political ends, while others want to laugh at those gullible enough to trust them.
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As with anonymous positions, the Internet gives people a certain license to say and do things that they would not do in their own name. Unlike Prakash, most are not exposed. They spread vicious, false stories and relish their sense of twisted power. While lacking the courage to speak in their own names (often in attacking those who have the courage to do so), they yield to their darkest or cruelest inclinations.
Prakash created a fake site to make it seem like this was not an anonymous, unreliable source. He found his chumps in the media who wanted to report the results without looking into the source. However, the “really good lesson” was missed by him: he was neither noble nor particularly clever, just another liar among the Internet’s sad voyeurs and vagabonds.
