2 Dec 2021

ASA 'tick' on fringe group pamphlet 'bonkers' - Farrier

From Afternoons, 1:40 pm on 2 December 2021

Journalist and documentary maker David Farrier has written about a mass leaflet drop from a fringe group known as 'Voices for Freedom', which displayed a 'tick' from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

David says the ASA is not fit for purpose when it comes to policing advocacy campaigns and needs to find a better approach.

He told Afternoons there appears to be a lot of money behind the leaflet drop, given how far and wide it went, and he’s looking into who’s behind it.

Mask

Mask Photo: RNZ

“My take is that it is a couple of well financed individuals, but they’re not clear on who’s behind the money. We know that Voices of Freedom is founded by Claire Deeks, who was a failed political party candidate for the Advance NZ party, and a couple of people from a knitting group.

“They’re very clear communicators, very smart, putting out these leaflets, that look semi-sane, in a lot of letterboxes around the country.”

Farrier says the Advertising Standards Authority makes out that it’s an objective group but, in reality, is a self-regulating body for the advertising industry.

“It’s there so the ad industry feels good about itself. They also hold very little power and it’s one thing when they’re making decisions on an ad for a toaster, for instance, but the difficulty is that they’re also looking into these lobby groups and the rulings are much more liberal.

“What happened is that there’s been three formal complaints to the ASA over Voices for Freedom pamphlets. Two of them were upheld with the ASA saying they couldn’t distribute them and that they were full of misinformation. But on one of their pamphlets, back in July, the ASA went through and ruled that the complaint, that it was full of disinformation, was not upheld.”

He says the ASA went through all of Voices for Freedom’s factually incorrect information points and agreed with them.

“I went through all the points with a doctor who regularly polices Covid misinformation and found that the ASA was giving a big thumbs up to all the disinformation that Voices for Freedom were saying and, of course, Voices for Freedom have taken that as a tick of approval and branded their new leaflet with it.

One of the claims approved by the ASA was that mask wearing does not decrease infections from person to person which has been shown by researchers and organisations to be false.

“One of the interesting things about the way the ASA works is that they only look at evidence that is supplied by the entity that’s being complained about. So Voices for Freedom supplied the ASA with all their sources so, of course, the ASA said in their ruling that the sources are here so we give it the thumbs up. That’s incredibly frustrating.”

The ASA should treat complaints relating to a serious pandemic a bit differently to the way the deal with complaints about toasters and get a bit of a backbone, he says.

“The thing with the ASA is they get incredibly worried around freedom of expression. They also don’t want to be sued by anybody. These are a group of private individuals that run this thing, they want to give a semblance that advertising is legitimate and policed but, when it comes to advocacy where opinions and facts are thrown in, they don’t have the impetus to step in and say anything real. So, you get these really wishy-washy results like this one.

“I think the board needs to take a long hard look at itself and I think New Zealanders need to be aware what the ASA is and how little power it wields. They get a lot of complaints about these newsletters but they have no power any of their decisions even when they do rule against these pamphlet drops. They’re not the system that I think a lot of New Zealanders think they are.”