Seems like a bizarre question - but there’s an ongoing case in the Australian state of New South Wales where a government agency has demanded that an anti-vaccination group change its name to reflect its true mission:
*"NSW Fair Trading Assistant Commissioner for Compliance and Enforcement Robert Vellar says the (Australian Vaccination Network)'s name had misled parents seeking information.
“People are being confused about the true nature of the information they are being provided on the AVN website, the name is misleading,” he said."*
The AVN has been given until Feb. 21 to change its name or lose its “registration” with the government (the consequences of which I am not quite clear on).
On the one hand, I am enjoying the attention given to the AVN’s bogus promotion of pseudoscience and the prospect of it having to be more honest about its aims. And I love the AVN leader’s pointing the finger at other groups whose titles she thinks are less than honest ("…she questioned why she was being targeted when “Greenpeace is not green, nor do they go around looking for peace…” :D).But it strikes me that the NSW officials are going way overboard in their attempts to protect the public.
For one thing, trying to regulate all the advocacy groups out there would be a near-impossible task. In the U.S., the Citizens United decision has created a bunch of vaguely/deceptively misnamed lobbying groups. And in the realm of abortion advocacy alone, I can think of only a single organization that has a completely straightforward name (the National Abortion Rights Action League). Above all, shouldn’t free speech considerations require great latitude in overseeing these matters, as long as the groups in question don’t seek money or lobby elected officials based on false pretenses? Should we even go so far as to require websites and mailings to include straightforward mission statements?
I agree. If the government has this power, then it’s up to them to decide which names are misleading and which aren’t, and I’d bet that groups which oppose the party in power would probably be targeted a lot more than those which support it. (Regardless of which party is in power.) Instead I think we should focus on renaming government agencies and departments so as to reflect their function. For starters, the Department of Defense should become the Department of Attack, or perhaps just the Department of Pork.
*I am reminded of the classic moment in Dr. Strangelove when the President exclaims in outrage “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here…this is the War Room!”
I don’t really see how it’s any different than regulating the names of for-profit entities to avoid confusing consumers. On the other hand, it’s hard to see how the name is misleading in the instant case. Other than not literally being a network of vaccines, that is.
I get tired of seeing stuff like this. I vote that they start by changing the name of the Patriot Act. It’s not just advocacy groups but legislation that gets contaminated with this stuff.
“We’ll call ourselves the People Who Love Puppies party! If you don’t agree with our platform, then you must not love puppies!”
The government (in the US anyway) leads the charge in creating new and innovative doublespeak. Tons of good examples in this thread already. It’s probably not a good idea to put the biggest offender in charge of fixing a problem.
What would the name of such a government agency be anyway?
They used to be called the Vaccination Awareness Network (which suggests they were promoting awareness of…well, something). Then they changed it to the Australian Vaccination Network, which could be well be taken as supporting vaccination. A simple fix would be to call them the Australian Anti-Vaccination Network (there is already a counter-group called Stop The AVN, which is pretty unambiguous).
In the U.S., we have the National Vaccine Information Center, which would more aptly be named the National Antivax Information Center.
It’s hard to believe that anyone could visit the websites of such groups and not realize quickly what viewpoint they’re pushing. But apparently some in government think we must be saved from our stupidity, like the midwives group in Australia that sent out invitations to attend an AVN seminar under the illusion that it was a non-insane health organization.
Free speech aside, I doubt there are many advocacy groups that have (what they consider) misleading names, with the possible exception of the Susan B Anthony Fund. I suspect even crisis pregnancy centers have names that reflect what they regard as their missions, according to their definitions of words.
This is a bad idea, and it’s something we just have to look out for. The thing is, even though I think the antivax people are wrong, I don’t think their name is inherently misleading given their perspective. Consider, they think vaccines are bad, they think that’s important information, from their perspective they’re just providing information about vaccines. Yes, it’s biased information. But now we’re going to ask government to reasonably and objectively control for bias in names, but they’re terrible at it themselves, as the previous example of the PATRIOT Act or other ones like SOPA/PIPA demonstrate.
I’d rather just let them have the names they want and leave the onus on the people to not be stupid. Seriously, if I’m going to be making a decision about my future children’s health, like vaccinations, I wouldn’t depend on just one source of information.
Hell, in the US, they can simply lie about who they are in the first place. There is currently a group called Use your Mandate which pretends to be a gay rights group, and is working against Obama’s appointment of Chuck Hagel. However, there is increasing evidence that this group is actually a Conservative group hiding behind anonymity.
I don’t like the proposal and it would seem to violate the first amendment. What happens when a GOP administration says that the name “Planned Parenthood” is misleading and must change it’s name to “Baby Killing Factory”? Or a DEM administration says that the NRA must change its name to the “We want more children to die in school shootings, Inc.”?
If they are raising money, it is like false advertising. I’d rather stop their ability to raise money, but that will never fly. I doubt much can be done, but in terms of raising money and overlapping with the concept of commercial speech as a result, they should be required to at least provide the equivalent of a prospectus detailing exactly what they do. It will be generally ignored, but at least make them do it.
A young mum googles for information on vaccinations and she ends up on the AVN site. She reads it and decides not to vaccinate her child. It doesn’t seem to be that an unlikely scenario at all. They aren’t targeting “informed” people such as yourself. You know that they are pushing an agenda and you understand the science and you are looking at this from a skewed perspective. Australia doesn’t share your constitution and neither does the rest of the world: and the Australian government has the right to decide whether or not an organization can be registered or not. I’m not seeing the issue here.
I’m not questioning that possibility. People commonly seek out sources to confirm their prejudices and/or are too lazy to consult a range of views.
What seems unlikely to me is that someone visiting such a site can fail to recognize their perspective, just as someone consulting a climate change denial site or anti-abortion website is bound to realize where they’re coming from. Is it really necessary for a government agency to regulate what such groups call themselves in order to protect people who want to believe what they’re told by the first (or only) source they consult?
It gets even more bizarre when you read the agency’s public statement on the matter:
“The Australian Vaccination Network does not present a balanced case for vaccination, does not present medical evidence to back-up its claims and therefore poses a serious risk of misleading the community,” (Minister for Fair Trading Anthony Roberts) said."
I agree with him on all counts. But is it government’s duty to assure that advocates’ presentations are “balanced” (I sense screams issuing from Fox News) and evidence-based? Or do we rely on countervailing sources of good information and common sense (as rare as that commodity can be at times)?