Vérifier : valider l’information pour confirmer sa véracité avant de l’accepter et de la partager
Équilibrer : partager la vérité dans son entièreté, même si certains aspects contredisent mes opinions
Citer : partager mes sources de sorte que d’autres peuvent vérifier l’information
Clarifier : faire une distinction entre les faits et mes opinions
Honorer la vérité
Reconnaitre : saluer le partage d’informations véridiques, même par mes opposants
Revoir : revoir ma position si mes informations sont disputées, les rétracter si je ne peux les vérifier
Défendre : prendre la défense des autres lorsqu’ils sont attaqués pour avoir partagé des informations véridiques, même si nos opinions diffèrent par ailleurs
Aligner : aligner mes opinions et mes actions sur les informations véridiques
Promouvoir la vérité
Corriger : demander aux gens de rétracter une information réfutée par des sources fiables, même si ce sont mes alliés
Éduquer : encourager les personnes autour de moi à ne plus se baser sur des sources non fiables, même si ces sources confortent mes opinions
Déférer : accepter que l’avis des experts a plus de poids lorsqu’il y a polémique sur les faits
Encourager : Saluer la démarche des personnes qui rétractent des affirmations incorrectes et alignent leur opinion sur la vérité
Die Wahrheit zu teilen Überprüfen: Meine Informationen zu prüfen, um zu bestätigen, was wahr ist, bevor ich sie akzeptiere und verbreite. Abwägen: Die ganze Wahrheit zu teilen, auch wenn einige Aspekte meinenAnsichtenwidersprechen. Zitieren: Meine Quellen zu nennen, damit andere meine Informationen nachprüfenkönnen. Erläutern: Aussagen klar als Meinung oder Tatsache darzustellen.
Die Wahrheit zu ehren Bestätigen: Anzuerkennen, wenn andere wahre Informationen teilen, auch wenn wir anderer Meinung sind.
Reevaluieren: Meine Informationen neu zu bewerten, wenn sie herausgefordert werden, und sie zurückzuziehen, wenn sie sich als falsch erweisen. Verteidigen: Andere zu verteidigen, wenn sie wegen wahrer Aussagen angegriffen werden, auch wenn wir ansonsten anderer Meinung sind. Orientieren: Meine Meinungen und Handlungen mit wahren Informationen in Einklang zu bringen.
Die Wahrheit zu ermutigen Korrigieren: Personen zu bitten, Informationen zurückzuziehen, die von zuverlässigen Quellen widerlegt wurden, auch wenn es sich um meine Verbündeten handelt. Bilden: Die um mich herum in ehrlicher Überzeugung zu ermutigen, unzuverlässige Quellen nicht zu verbreiten, auch wenn diese Quellen meine Meinung unterstützen. Vertrauen: Den Meinungen von Experten vorrangig Glauben zu schenken, wenn die Faktenlage umstritten ist. Anerkennen: Diejenigen anzuerkennen, die falsche Aussagen zurückziehen und ihre Überzeugungen den Tatsachen entsprechend anpassen.
Caption: Image from Lorenzo T. Neal’s website (Courtesy of Lorenzo Neal)
The phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” has become a part of American pop culture and we say it without even thinking about it. We expect the truth from media and our public officials. However there are many in the public sphere who believe the line from the movie, and think that Americans cannot handle truth. They have bought into the belief that alternative facts and misleading headlines and storylines are the only thing people can understand. They go out of their way to ensure that people stay in ignorant bliss while they continue providing lies and misinformation plaguing our daily news cycles and political rhetoric. One way to counter this great miscarriage of knowledge is by taking the Pro-Truth Pledge.
I happened upon the Pro-Truth Pledge after having Dr. Gleb Tsipursky as a guest on my Zera Today radio show. After hearing of his experience and expertise, I was convinced that I needed to take the pledge. The Pro-Truth Pledge exists to reverse the tide of lies by encouraging everyone including politicians and other public figures to commit to truth oriented behavior. Through the Pro-Truth Pledge, individuals are encouraged to honor truth, encourage truth, and share truth. They are encouraged to verify information before sharing on their social media, defend those who share truth even if it doesn’t agree with their personal beliefs or opinions. They are encouraged to educate by informing others in their sphere of influence to not use unreliable sources and courageously demand retractions when untruths are presented to the public. The Pro-Truth Pledge is all about holding everyone to the same level of accountability.
As a pastor in a Christian faith community, I am held to a higher standard of communicating truth. I also identify as a conservative politically (a classical liberal with libertarian leaning) and expect those in public service are held accountable to the promises they make on the campaign trail. Proverbs 10:32 says that a righteous person speaks things that are true and acceptable from their lips but the mouth of a deceitful person is perverted. Jesus of Nazareth spake some pretty famous words in John 8:32 when he “you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” Furthermore in James 5:12 and 3 John 1:4, truth is strongly encouraged against all falsehood. Whether one is religious or not, truth should be the synonymous moral standard for all individuals.
If we fall prey to the ongoing pursuit of alternative facts and lies by public officials and celebrities, we may lose our democracy. If we don’t hold government officials and people of influence to the truth, it will be hard to fight against corruption in government. The Pro-Truth Pledge brings everyone together around the commitment to the ideal of truth without consequences. It promotes true liberation from those who wish to maintain the status quo through a plethora of lies.
I am committed to promoting truth. That is why I took the Pro-Truth Pledge. My life and ministry is about empowering others to knowing and impacting the world around them. You can do more than protest. You can do more than vote. You can take the Pro-Truth Pledge and help others do the same.
Caption: Image of famous “FACTS NOT OPINIONS” motto at the Kirkaldy Testing Works (Wikimeida Commons)
So you took the Pro-Truth Pledge (PTP), or are thinking about taking it, and are wondering what we mean by facts, opinions, and experts? Great questions, and very relevant for two behaviors of the pledge:
Clarify: distinguish between my opinion and the facts
Defer: recognize the opinions of experts as more likely to be accurate when the facts are disputed
Just the Facts
The main purpose of the PTP is to fight misinformation, and we take our approach to the facts from that perspective. We aim for a shared definition of “facts” on which all reasonable people can agree, including 1) physical phenomena we can reasonably observe with our senses, and 2) abstract phenomena we can reasonably derive from a few basic principles of logic, math, and other disciplines. Let’s consider the first, using the example of a basketball.
We can all agree that a typical basketball is orange, round, makes a bouncy sound, and smells and tastes rubbery. That uses all five of our senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste (please don’t taste basketballs). We aren’t interested in the semantics of the deeper meaning of “orange” or “smells of rubber”: all we are concerned is that reasonable people can reasonably agree on these aspects of “basketball.” While we sympathize with people who have color blindness or synesthesia or other conditions that makes it difficult for them to trust their senses, our physical sensory experiences are one of the two best tools we have for a shared understanding of reality, which is why we use them as one definition of “fact.”
The way this definition becomes relevant in public discourse, which is the area covered by the PTP, stems from our ability to observe with our senses claims made by politicians. For instance, we have photographic evidence that Hillary Clinton did not land under sniper fire in Bosnia, unlike she claimed. On the other side of the political aisle, videotaped and photographic evidence shows that Donald Trump’s claims that he had the biggest inauguration size ever are incorrect. In both cases, we relied on our physical senses to evaluate these claims.
The other category we term “facts” refers to abstract phenomena derived from logic, math, and other related disciplines. Thus, reasonable people can agree that 2+2=4. We can agree that if a>b and b>c then a>c. We can agree that 50% of 100 is 50. We can agree that, following the guidelines of logic and probabilistic thinking, the more outlandish the claim, the more evidence it requires, and “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” a phrase popularized by Carl Sagan. We can also agree that if someone has a clear financial or other motivation that drives their claims, their claims should be considered less weighty. Likewise, sources that are frequently biased in one direction or another should be trusted less than more neutral sources on topics that align with the bias of the frequently-biased source. Moreover, sources that are more fact-based deserve higher trust than those which rely more on opinions.
Caption: Meme saying “Not sure if this is the time to be super-picky or if i should wait until later in this blog” (Made by blog author)
Just don’t go all lawyerly and start being super-picky. We’re talking about general principles on which reasonable people can agree. Likewise, we’re not trying to make an exhaustive list here, just listing a few examples. Any of these can be exhaustively debated in philosophy classes, but that’s not the point of the PTP.
Now going on to public policy relevance, we can see that if someone makes a claim that millions of non-citizens voted illegally in the 2016 election and does not show evidence despite repeated requests for evidence, while plenty of transparent studies show clear evidence of negligible voter fraud in US elections, the claim of millions of illegal voters can be safely judged as false. That was a claim made by a Trump supporter, and endorsed by Trump himself. Clinton, in turn, made a claim that she lost in Wisconsin because “200,000 people in Wisconsin were either denied or chilled in their efforts to vote,” an extraordinary claim for which she did not provide appropriate evidence.
We acknowledge that the two categories above are a rather narrow understanding of “facts.” In other contexts, facts might include one’s internal mental experiences, such as feelings of pleasure or pain, or one’s thoughts about a topic, such as whether a politician changed her mind based on actual evidence or just to be elected. However, those internal mental states are inaccessible to external observers, and we tend to overestimate our ability to know other people’s subjective experiences. Since the pledge is meant to prevent misinformation, we want to have a narrow definition of facts. Our aim is ensuring that when someone who signed the pledge is accused of making a false statement, we can either reasonably observe the false statement with our senses, or reasonably derive it from principles of logic, math, and related disciplines.
One of the behaviors of the PTP involves differentiating your opinion from the facts. By opinion we refer to anything that is an evaluation of a situation, whether a personal opinion or an expert analysis. Let’s start with something easy: “I think you stink” is an opinion. By contrast, “I smelled your body odor from about 30 feet away” is an observation of fact. We’d want to get other noses in there to verify the fact, but you get the gist. Another fact: “it’s 70 degrees outside, according to the reading on the thermometer.” An opinion would be “yeesh, that’s hot” or “brrr, that’s cold.” The US federally-mandated minimum wage is $7.25: that’s a fact, as of 11/8/2017. An opinion might be that it’s too low, too high, or just right. Holding everything else steady and cutting the income tax would result in you paying less taxes: whether doing so would create more jobs is an opinion.
To continue our use of Clinton and Trump, many people who dislike Clinton claim that it’s a fact that she’s a criminal and needs to be in jail. In turn, many people who dislike Trump claim that it’s a fact that he has colluded with Russia to undermine the US election. In both cases, what these people hold are opinions, rather than facts. Despite a long investigation, Clinton has not been convicted of a crime or even charged with one, while the investigation into Trump’s potential collusion with Russia is ongoing at the time of this blog post’s writing. To continue treading these somewhat dangerous waters, some people claim that it’s a fact that Bernie Sanders is not a “real Democrat.” Of course, their claim depends on their own opinion of what makes someone a “real Democrat.” Someone else might claim that Trump is not a “true conservative,” which again depends on one’s opinion of what makes someone a “true conservative.”
As we can see from these examples, opinions are often subjects of disagreement among different people. However, even when judgments about reality are subjects of common agreement, they still fall into the realm of opinion. For example, you’ll find few people in Columbus, OH, where I live, who would not describe a temperature above 100 degrees Fahrenheit as “hot” or who think that we should not have any taxes and just fend for ourselves. Still, despite our common agreement about temperature or the benefit of government functions, these areas of common agreement are still opinions. Remember, your opinions are opinions even when they are widely shared: as a side note, be suspicious when you perceive your opinion to be widely shared, as we tend to overestimate the extent to which other people share our opinions.
So make sure to enact the pledge by recognizing the difference between the facts and your opinions. If it might be unclear to others whether your statement is a fact or opinion, clarify this matter. Minimize editorializing, meaning mixing in your opinion with facts, such as in “our currently too-low minimum wage is $7.25” or “our government’s incompetent UN Ambassador is heading to a meeting in Brussels.” Both of these statements combine opinion with facts, and make it unclear which is which: it’s best to avoid such statements. We have a relatively high standard of what constitutes a violation of the pledge, and only the more extreme forms of such editorializing that convey information in an obviously deceptive manner would qualify as violations. Still, I would encourage all pledge-takers to orient toward fully enacting all the behaviors of the pledge, as opposed to doing the bare minimum to not violate it.
Experts
Caption: Meme saying “one does not simply disregard the opinions of experts” (Made by blog author)
Any one of us can have an opinion on any topic. We can have the belief that chocolate ice creams is better than vanilla, or that baseball is boring and basketball is not, or that cats are better than dogs, or any other opinion. In the realm of public discourse, we can hold the opinion that our taxes are too high or too low, or that one politician is better than another, or that the government should do more or less to cover people’s medical bills, or that our gun policy is too strict or too loose. Anyone’s opinion, everything else being equal, has just as much validity as all other people’s opinions from the perspective of truth.
However, everything else is often not equal, since some people have more expertise than others. Thus, the Pro-Truth Pledge asks signers, as one of the behaviors, to “recognize the opinions of experts as more likely to be accurate when the facts are disputed.” Let’s unpack this behavior.
First, the term “expert:” what does that even mean? Well, “expertise” can refer to many different things. For example, say I spend 30 minutes researching the best Android phones of 2017, which I did yesterday after my phone started acting up and I decided to get a new one. That research gained me some expertise. Thus, my opinion about what are the best Android phones of 2017 will likely be closer to reality than another person who did not research this matter and whose activities in general are not related to smartphones.
However, that’s not what we mean by “expert.” We mean someone who has a quite significant familiarity with a specific topic area, as shown by commonly-recognized credentials such as a certification, an academic degree, publication of a book, years of experience in a field, or other way that a reasonable person may recognize an “expert.” Thus, an expert in Android phones might be someone who has worked for several years in making these phones, or an experienced salesperson, or a technology writer. They would be able to hold a lengthy conversation on the specs of smartphones, describe why certain people might prefer one or the other, and how to determine which is right for you.
Experts like that are able to draw on their substantial body of knowledge and experience to provide an opinion – often phrased as “expert analysis” – that is, as the pledge states, “more likely to be accurate when the facts are disputed.” That doesn’t mean an expert will always be right, simple more likely to be right when the facts are disputed, following probabilistic thinking. So for policy expertise, a geologist studying well water issues is more likely to be closer to reality in evaluating hydrofracking than someone who has not studies well water for years; an economist specializing in taxes will be more likely to be correct about the outcomes of proposed changes in taxation than someone who is not; a foreign policy expert in North Korea will be more likely to be right about the reactions of the North Korean leadership to any given external event than someone who is not.
This greater likelihood of experts being closer to the truth when the facts are disputed explains why the pledge encourages pledge-takers to defer to experts. However, this is not an absolute principle by any means. First, research shows that experts do best in evaluating reality in environments that are relatively stable over time and thus predictable, and also when the experts have a chance to learn about the predictable aspects of this environment. Thus, an expert on North Korea may be less able to make an accurate evaluation in the context of a regime change, since her previous good read on the leadership is now less salient with a new leadership. Likewise, an expert on taxation might have less capacity to predict the impact of taxation on newly-emerging fields like cryptocurrency. Second, other research shows that ideological biases can have a strongly negative impact on the ability of experts to make accurate evaluations. Third, financial and other material motivations can sway experts to conduct an analysis favorable to their financial sponsor. Other factors may also cloud expert judgment.
Thus, while we recommend that pledge-takers by default defer to expert judgment as more likely to be accurate, we do not demand it, except in two limited cases. One is in expert evaluations by credible fact-checking organizations, as described in this post, and another is in the scientific consensus. Credible fact-checking organizations hire experts whose expertise is in unearthing the facts and comparing the facts to statements made by public figures, to evaluate the accuracy of the statement. Their financial motivations and field of expertise align well to ensure they focus on figuring out the truth of reality, and their reputation is maintained if they do a good job. Since we consider “credible” only fact-checking organizations that have been vetted by the Poynter Institute International Fact-Checking Network, we are comfortable with asking pledge-takers to abide by the evaluations of these fact-checkers.
Similarly, while individual scientists may make mistakes, it is incredibly rare for the scientific consensus as a whole to be wrong. Scientists get rewarded in money and reputation for finding fault with statements about reality made by other scientists. Thus, for the large majority of them to agree on something – for there to be a scientific consensus – is a pretty clear indicator from a probabilistic perspective that whatever they agree on reflects reality accurately.
That doesn’t mean that credible fact-checkers can’t be wrong, and neither does it mean that the scientific consensus can’t be wrong. What it does mean is that going against credible fact-checking organizations and the scientific consensus will be very, very likely to be wrong. Let me phrase it this way: I’d be happy to stake a $100 to $1 bet on the accuracy of the scientific consensus or a credible fact-checking organization. Because of this high likelihood of losing if you bet against the scientific consensus or a credible fact-checking organization, we perceive such bets to be motivated not by a search for truth but biased motivations. Therefore, we ask that pledge-takers do not make such bets and abide by the scientific consensus and credible fact-checking organizations as part of taking the pledge.
The only exception is a scientist in a field relevant to scientific consensus, who we welcome questioning the consensus, as that’s the way progress is made in science: this scientist is much less likely to be questioning the consensus from biases motivations, rather than the pure drive for advancing scientific knowledge based on new information and insights.
Conclusion
I hope these guidelines help you see where we’re coming from when we talk about facts, opinions, and experts from the perspective of the pledge. Let us know what questions you have!
Caption: Skeptical baby meme saying “you mean to tell me you’re going to hold me accountable?” (Created by post author)
The Pro-Truth Pledge wouldn’t work without a way to hold at least the public figures who take the pledge accountable for their commitment. How does the pledge do so?
Crowdsourcing Accountability
While we can’t always see whether pledge-takers exert their “earnest efforts” to abide by the pledge, we can see when a pledge-taker shares misinformation, and the pledge is considered violated when a pledge-taker shares what the pledge defines as misinformation. From the perspective of the pledge, misinformation is anything that conveys information in an obviously deceptive way that leads audiences to have a fundamentally wrong impression of the truth in any given matter, and a thorough description with examples is at this link.
Violating the pledge in itself is not a problem for pledge-takers, as it does not mean you are going to be immediately punished for doing so, since the PTP is not intended to be primarily punitive. In putting facts first, we are not trying to play “gotcha” when someone makes an innocent mistake that causes a violation the pledge. After all, we aim to push ourselves and others who signed the pledge to be better than our natural inclinations – just like it is against the natural inclination of many of us to avoid a second piece of chocolate cake. Yet taking the second piece and thus violating our aspirations to eat well doesn’t mean we drop our goal of having healthy eating habits, but simply try to figure out what went wrong and aim to do better in the future.
Similarly, each of us may well eventually fail to be oriented toward the truth, and make a statement that goes against a fact-checking website or the scientific consensus or the clearly visible truth of reality. We rely on a community of truth-oriented individuals to support each other and provide compassionate correction when we fail, helping advance open-minded thinking among all of us and thus improving our society, as research shows. A key piece of the pledge is that all pledge-takers will hold all others who took the pledge accountable for upholding the truth. If someone is unwilling to correct themselves when provided clear information about their mistake, it is the responsibility of each of us who took the pledge to hold that person accountable by publicizing that person’s actions in appropriate channels, to penalize that person through harming that person’s reputation. In doing so, please make sure to provide both: 1) Clear evidence of the violation, and 2) Clear evidence of a good-faith, reasonable effort to get the alleged violator of the pledge to address the violation. If the individual is a private citizen, the matter ends there, as this sort of reputational blow provides a significant enough disincentive to cause the large majority private citizens who take the pledge to avoid lying.
Holding Public Figures Accountable
While this crowd-based accountability mechanism is appropriate for private citizens, we have a separate and more formalized mechanism for holding accountable those who identify as public figures. They get the reward of a positive reputation boost for taking the pledge, in exchange for agreeing to be held publicly accountable for their commitment to avoiding misinformation. While a public figure sharing misinformation by mistake suffers no penalty, one deliberately violating the pledge – as shown by a refusal to retract misinformation one shared – suffers substantial negative consequences. You can see some examples at this link.
How does this accountability work in practice? First of all, anyone – whether they took the pledge or not – can report a complaint about any public figure who signed the pledge through our “Violation Report” form. We are excited to get potential violations of the pledge brought to our attention, but unfortunately get many frivolous complaints by people who failed to read thoroughly and understand what actually constitutes a violation of the pledge. For example, it’s easy to complain that someone has not “shared the whole truth” if they did not write a three-tome book about a topic. Likewise, someone might complain about misinformation shared in private, while the pledge only applies to public speech. Similarly, someone might make complaints about a public speech act that is not visible, say a deleted tweet or an unrecorded speech: unless evidence is available, we simply are unable to investigate the matter. Overall, the burden of evidence is on the one bringing the complaint, as we have an “innocent until proven guilty” approach to public figures: otherwise, few would sign the pledge. However, we are very glad whenever a complaint proves viable, and if that is the case, then it is passed on to a PTP advocate who has some experience in evaluating complaints.
Another way a complaint can come forward is from a PTP advocate specifically assigned to monitor one or more public figures: this is one of the volunteer activities available as part of the pledge project. If a Pro-Truth advocate finds that a public figure has violated the pledge, the advocate would contact the person privately. As part of this process, the advocate would adopt “charity mode,” meaning being more charitable toward the alleged violator than is one’s intuition, together with the “innocent until proven guilty” perspective – perhaps the person misspoke, or the advocate misheard something. The advocate would use curiosity and questioning to determine whether there is clear evidence that the pledge has been violated. If there is clear evidence, provide this to the alleged violator, and if the person retracts her/his words, the matter is resolved. Let the organizers of the pledge know about this matter by emailing info [at] protruthpledge [dot] org.
If the alleged violator is a public figure, the advocate would escalate the matter to a PTP local, regional, or national mediating committee, depending on the status of the public figure. This committee includes a group of vetted volunteers who would evaluate the evidence provided by the advocate, contact the public figure for a chance for the person to offer an explanation, and make a ruling – either determining that there is a violation, that there is no violation, or that the evidence is insufficient to make a judgment. If there is a ruling of a violation, then this ruling is evaluated by a member of the PTP Central Coordination Committee, to ensure fairness and accuracy, and provide an external perspective. In the case that the PTP Central Coordination Committee member also determines that a violation has occurred, the committee then contacts the alleged violator, offering the person another chance to retract her/his words. By this time, the public figure had a number of opportunities to clarify the situation and correct it if a mistake has been made, rather than if the public figure aimed to make a deliberate deception to pollute the truth and hurt all of us. This process might sound a little convoluted, but it minimizes the possibility of the PTP being politicized or corrupted at a local level.
If the public figure still refuses to take her/his words back, the PTP mediating committee would issue a press advisory that the public figure is in contempt of the pledge to put reputational pressure on the thought leader, with clear evidence of the violation as well as the efforts it made to get the public figure to revise the violation. The PTP mediating committee would also contact relevant organizations with which the person who violated the pledge is affiliated, such as the radio station if it is a radio show host, or a university if it is a scientist. It would also issue a PTP Action Alert to those who indicated they want to receive such alerts – either at the local, regional, or national level, depending on the stature of the public figure – for them to email/Tweet and otherwise message the public figure encouraging her/him to revise the relevant statements, and writing letters-to-the-editor about the situation. Finally, the public figure will be listed on the PTP website as in contempt of the pledge, and will be asked to stop using the PTP website seal and other indicators that they are committed to the PTP (on pain of legal action).
This provides considerable reputation pressure for a public figure to avoid being in contempt of the pledge – if the public figure envisions violating the pledge deliberately, s/he would be better off not signing it at all. To summarize, innocent violations of the pledge will not be penalized, only deliberate attempts to misrepresent the truth and thus undermine the public good of truth and trust.
Who will monitor the PTP mediating committees? Other pledge-takers, of course. The PTP mediating committees have strong incentives to ensure that their rulings are as fair and objective as is possible, because their whole reputation rests on such objectivity. The outcomes of their proceedings – if there is a ruling of a violation – will be provided as evidence for scrutiny by other pledge-takers, and the public at large. These outcomes will not be provided if the public figure retracts her/his words at any stage, to prevent reputation damage for the public figure, since the PTP is not meant to be punitive but corrective.
While the pledge is only violated when one shares misinformation, public figures who take the pledge can engage in more subtle forms of shading the truth, what is known as “spin.” Such shadings of the truth only rises to the level of violation of the pledge when it meets the bar of what we consider misinformation from the perspective of the pledge, namely conveying “information in an obviously deceptive way that leads audiences to have a fundamentally wrong impression of the truth in any given matter.” In more light cases of “spin” where this bar is not met, the pledge organizers will not be able to impose formal reputational sanctions on the public figure engaging in spin. We made this choice of avoiding punishing light cases of spin because there is too much potential for differences of opinion to prejudice evaluations of what constitutes spin, as well as our intent to follow Blackstone’s formulation as enshrined in the judicial system: “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” However, we encourage other pledge-takers informally to call out the public figure for engaging in spin. In almost all cases, spin will go against one of the truth-oriented behaviors outlined in the pledge. Please bring this matter to the attention of the public figure engaging in spin, and encourage that public figure to model the spirit of the pledge, even if their words do not technically violate the pledge.
Conclusion
Hope this provides you with clear guidance of how to hold people accountable for taking the pledge. Let us know what your experience is like and what questions you have!
You’re a public figure or organization representative who took the Pro-Truth Pledge (PTP)? Wonderful! Let’s talk about how you can get the most benefit from taking it.
Your PTP Profile
First of all, make sure that your Pro-Truth Pledge profile on the Public Figures and Organizations PTP page looks the way you want it to look. We find that people who provide a paragraph about why they took the pledge, their photographs, and links to their online venues – websites, social media, articles about them, etc. – get quite a bit more traffic from the page. Note that the website automatically puts up all the information you entered into the form in the way you entered it, without a human evaluating how it looks or ensuring the grammar structure makes sense. So if there was a typo or if some aspect of the profile wasn’t filled in correctly, it will need to be fixed manually.
Just search for your name, keeping in mind that the public figure and organization signers are in reverse chronological order. If you find a problem, or just want to flesh out your form, email info [at] protruthpledge [dot] org to let us know, and we’ll fix it on the backend for you. We’ll try to catch obvious errors or oversights when we go through the data in occasional database cleanups, but it’s much more effective and certain if you email us yourself.
Remember, news media who are writing stories about the PTP use that page to learn about which public figures and organizations took the pledge and why they did so. Private citizens use that page to decide for which politicians to vote, from which media personalities to get their news, which authors to read, which organizations to support, and so on. Put your best foot forward by ensuring that you represent yourself well on that page.
Be Public About the Pledge
You took the pledge, so you’re already being evaluated for the truthfulness of your public statements. So be public about the fact that you took it! That both helps you get the maximum benefit from taking the pledge, and also helps create the most positive impact for promoting truth and fighting lies by making your existing followers aware of the PTP.
Caption: Screenshot of the homepage of Peter Singer’s website (Courtesy of Peter Singer)
Check out our blog with suggestions on implementing the PTP on social media. Here are some specific steps that have worked well for other public figures: please add the following statement to the “About” section of your Facebook page: “I have taken the Pro-Truth Pledge ProTruthPledge.org: please hold me accountable“ as in this example, and the same statement to the “About” section of your personal Facebook profile as in this example. For your LinkedIn profile, add that you are a “Signer” of the Pro-Truth Pledge LinkedIn organization. Click the “+” button on your “Experience” section, put in “Signer” as title, choose “Pro-Truth Pledge” as the organization, put in your date of signing, and in the description state “I have taken the Pro-Truth Pledge at ProTruthPledge.org: please hold me accountable.” You can add additional information about why you chose to take the pledge and/or what kind of activities you are doing to advance the pledge as well.
If you have other relevant social media venues, please add the same statement there. Please add this Facebook Frame to your Facebook profile, and this Twibbon to your Twitter profile (please mark the Facebook Frame as “permanent” as the main point of the frame is to show others that you took the pledge and are comfortable being held publicly accountable for your words). Here is an example of the Facebook frame from Randy Grein, who was at the time running for a City Council position in Bellevue, WA.
Caption: Screenshot of Randy Grein’s Facebook profile with PTP Facebook Frame (Courtesy of Randy Grein)
Naturally, he had it on his campaign website page as well.
Caption: Screenshot of the homepage of Randy Grein’s website with PTP website seal (Courtesy of Randy Grein)
Does it make a difference? You bet! Here’s my Facebook message exchange with Randy Grein about the impact of him sharing about taking the PTP.
Randy Grein: People have been noticing. And it’s helping with the campaign. Which is as it should be, but still surprising that people value honesty.
Gleb Tsipursky: Wonderful to hear that people are noticing and it’s helping the campaign, great! Glad to hear it. Spread word to other political candidates about it too, encourage them to take it.
Randy Grein: working on it, but it may not have much effect til the next cycle. Hope you’re in it for the long term!
Gleb Tsipursky: Of course I am ?
Grein permitted me to quote him, and the full exchange is at this link for anyone who wants to see a screenshot.
If you have a blog, consider writing a thorough description of why you took the pledge, as Ed Brayton did here. If you are a radio show host like Ethan Bearman, it helps to take the pledge during a live interview to spread the word to your audience, as he did here. Alternatively, you can take the pledge and have an interview afterward with one of the pledge organizers, as podcaster Jon Willis did here. If you are part of a larger group, such as Jami Miller who is an editor at the Progressive Army news website, try to get your colleagues to take the pledge.
What about organizations? Let’s take the example of Professor Edward Maibach, who is the head of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. He took the pledge himself and tweeted about it, and took the pledge on behalf of the organization he runs, and had the organization indicate it did so by retweeting a tweet about it. He then encouraged people in his department to take the pledge.
Make it fit whatever format is best suitable to your online presence or media channels. As an example, Douglas Nix, a business leader, put it on his official contact page on his business website. Pat Lynch, the CEO of Women’s Radio Network, did a radio episode about it.
You may also be interested in getting more actively involved in the Pro-Truth Pledge virtual or in-person community. Please join this Facebook group for Intentional Insights, the 501(c)3 nonprofit running the pledge project. That group is dedicated to promotion of truth and rational thinking in politics and other life areas. After that, join this Facebook group for Global Pro-Truth Pledge-oriented activities. The Facebook group for Global Pro-Truth Pledge-oriented activities also has links out to local groups which you might be interested in joining in your area. On LinkedIn, join our Pro-Truth Pledge Advocates group.
Last but not least, tell other public figures you know about having taken the pledge, and invite them to join you in doing so. This offers you both more credibility as someone truth-oriented yourself, and helps promote the pledge at the same time. Here are a number of template pitches to different types of public figures, which you can adapt to your needs and relationship with each individual person you would like to invite to take the pledge.
The Pledge in Elections
The PTP has a special significance for elected officials during election campaigns. Citizens are in the process of making a choice about which candidates to trust and support with their votes, their time as volunteers, and their money as donors. Yet polling shows decreasing levels of trust in public officials.
Indeed, with the extensive amount of political deception uncovered regularly by credible fact-checking, citizens are right to feel skeptical. How can they tell apart candidates for office who spout bald-faced lies from those who actually tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? After all, the liars will lie about lying, right? You might be the most honest person in the world, but if other people can’t tell that, your honesty won’t make any difference.
Here is where taking the PTP sets you as a candidate apart from the competition. Here’s a nutshell description of the Pro-Truth Pledge to share with your potential supporters: it’s a public commitment to truthful behaviors. The PTP is for anyone, private citizens and public figures alike. However, public figures are held accountable for their statements. Tell them that anyone at any time can report on the pledge website any violation of the pledge, and it will be thoroughly investigated. Therefore, your potential constituents can trust you to stick to the facts, not only because you promise them you are truthful – any politician can do that – but also because you are held accountable.
We find it helps to use the metaphor of the pledge as the Better Business Bureau for public figures: just like the BBB holds businesses accountable to ethical business practices, the PTP holds public figures accountable for truthfulness in their public statements. Similarly, just like anyone can lodge a complaint to the BBB and a business will have to respond to a legitimate complaint, anyone can lodge a complaint to the PTP. If after initial investigation the PTP evaluators consider the complaint legitimate, the public figure will be asked to respond.
We find that it really helps candidates not simply to share that they took the pledge, but also call on their supporters to do so. For instance, see this post by Rob Sand, candidate for Iowa State Auditor.
This proved to be one of the most popular posts on his page around that time. His posts typically get under a 100 Facebook “reactions” and less than a dozen shares. This one got many more. Furthermore, the people who took the pledge at Rob’s request were more likely to volunteer for and donate to Rob, due to this sense of shared affiliation and commitment.
You get a particular advantage if some of the candidates you are competing with for elected office have not taken the pledge. This gives you a great opportunity to differentiate yourself by highlighting how you chose to be publicly accountable to the truth, and your opponents are refusing to do so. You can ask why your opponents do not want to be held accountable for the truth. This can be phrased with different levels of intensity, from “I have chosen to be held accountable for the truth, unlike my opponents” to “unlike my opponents, I have chosen to be held accountable for the truth, and do not have anything to hide or lie about.” We suggest you use the more intense wording in cases where you can demonstrate they have something to hide about or are indeed lying about something. Point out how anyone can say they’re trustworthy and not lying, but the pledge allows voters to tell apart the ones who are truthful from the ones who are not, because the pledge-takers are actually held accountable for their words. Talk about not being afraid to be held accountable, and being glad to change your mind based on new information, unlike your opponents. Talk about not being beholden to special interests and running a race where you truly represent the people: thus you don’t need to talk out of both sides of your mouth, one to special interests and one to regular voters, and manipulating voters with deceptive statements.
The more you talk about PTP, the more impactful it is for you. On the one hand, it gets your existing supporters more excited: they can be proud of the candidate they support making this strong public commitment. On the other, it can help sway those who are skeptical and on the fence, since they know that they can trust you more than other candidates in a race. It helps to encourage your supporters to go themselves sign the pledge and call on all of their elected representatives to do so: they will then have more buy-in into the pledge, and thus into your campaign. We find that supporters especially appreciate seeing candidates do retractions or clarifications while mentioning the pledge, and express pride over doing so: it helps them see your integrity in action. Finally, when you talk to the media, at opportune moments bring up how you took the PTP as a way of showing your public commitment to truthfulness. Journalists tend to be savvy, and they will take the time to check out the website and see the credible nature of the PTP initiative.
Candidates often ask us about what to do if they get accused of violating the pledge. It’s key to recognize that the behaviors in the PTP are about making an earnest effort, and people on different sides of the political divide – especially those who support your opponent in the race – will generally have different interpretations of “earnest effort.” This is why we have a clear statement of what constitutes a violation of the pledge: “anything that conveys information in an obviously deceptive way that leads audiences to have a fundamentally wrong impression of the truth in any given matter.” So if you have anyone accusing you of sharing misinformation in an unfair way, and you don’t think you violated the pledge, you can provide them with a link to this blog to inform them about what makes for a violation. If they continue to insist that you violated the pledge, you can let them know that they can report a violation of the pledge at this link. The pledge organizers will evaluate all complaints fairly and thoroughly.
Let’s talk about an example of how a candidate implements the pledge. Johny Martin is a candidate running for the Arizona House of Representatives. He wrote up a values statement about why he took the Pro-Truth Pledge, and created a graphic on his website describing himself as a “Pro-Truth Candidate” and asking potential constituents to hold him accountable.
Caption: Screenshot of Johny Martin’s website where he asks potential supporters to hold him accountable (Courtesy of Johny Martin)
He takes the pledge very seriously. For example, when he made a mis-statement during a public event, he posted on Facebook later retracting the mis-statement, and citing the pledge.
He got a lot of love for doing so: in general, supporters of candidates who took the pledge strongly support them when they do retractions.
Moreover, on the home page of his website, he also challenged his opponents in the race to take the Pro-Truth Pledge. He gave his supporters an easy automatic way to email his opponents challenging them to take the pledge right from his website.
Caption: Screenshot of Johny Martin’s website where he asks potential supporters to call on all candidates for the Arizona house race take the pledge (Courtesy of Johny Martin)
Likewise, Martin promotes on social media the fact that he took the pledge, and makes clear that his opponents failed to do so.
Caption: Screenshot of Johny Martin’s Tweet where he highlights that he is the only candidate in his Arizona house race who took the pledge (Courtesy of Johny Martin)
Think that such Tweets and other calling out won’t work? Well, you might be surprised that many candidates for office found calling out their opponents quite effective! For example, consider Justin Vold, a candidate for Minnesota State Legislature. He was running against a well-established incumbent member of the Minnesota State Legislature, Dean Urdahl. Vold tweeted at Urdahl challenging him to take the pledge, and Urdahl responded! Now, Vold can hold Urdahl accountable for Urdahl’s statements, and vice versa. What a great outcome, especially when a challenger takes on a well-established incumbent.
Caption: Screenshot of Justin Vold’s tweet that he took the pledge and calls on his opponent in the race to take the pledge, and his opponent responding by taking the pledge (Twitter link)
You can also make a video about yourself taking the Pro-Truth Pledge. For example, Member of US Congress Beto O’Rourke made a Facebook Live video about himself taking the pledge. Doing so is a great way to connect with your constituents, and you can then download the video from Facebook and post it on Youtube for easy access by media.
That kind of approach to the pledge – combining being public about taking it, retracting mis-statements publicly, and challenging opponents to take the pledge – helps candidates gain the appropriate recognition for their truthful behavior, differentiates them from opponents who have chosen to avoid this commitment, while also advancing the fight against fake news and political deception through spreading word about the pledge.
Pro-Truth Pledge activists around the country help spread the message about candidates who have taken the pledge and those who have not in a variety of ways, such as letters to the editor like this one, or op-eds like this one. We also have many media professionals around the country sympathetic to our endeavors, and we work with them to help them publish pieces like this one uplifting candidates who have taken the pledge. Shortly before an election, we send out a message to all private citizens who signed the pledge in your area informing them of which candidates signed the pledge, and which failed to do so. We have a host of other ways of boosting the message about which candidates have committed to truthful behavior. In many cases, there will be a local pledge chapter that can help with boosting your message and supporting your candidacy. Get in touch with the Pro-Truth Pledge central coordinators through info [at] protruthpledge [dot] org, and they will get you in touch with a local area organizer if one is in your area.
However, the more the candidates can do themselves, the better off their chances. Politicians across the country have effectively used this strategy to uplift the cause of truth, along with their own candidacy. The more they talk about this topic, the more credibility and trust they get among potential voters, and the more they can show that their competitors do not deserve trust among voters. For example, see in this article how Melissa Manrow, at the time a candidate for the Decatur City Commission, talked up the fact that she took the PTP.
Conclusion
Following the strategies outlined above will enable you to be get the maximum benefit both for your own reputation as a truth-teller and for promoting truth and fighting lies in our society. Let us know what your experience is like and what questions you have!
