FCC Chair Brendan Carr warns broadcasters over fake polls — Ars Technica

In the United States, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr warned television broadcasters against airing so-called fake polls. In a post on the social network X, he said that journalists and broadcasters had distributed such data without properly verifying its scientific validity, accuracy, or reality, Ars Technica reports.

Carr advised broadcasters not to allow news distortion or television hoaxes that could conflict with their regulatory obligations. He also called on them to provide viewers with additional context about the polls they reported on. At the same time, the FCC chair named neither specific fake polls nor television channels that may have aired them.

Criticism from former FCC officials

A group of former FCC chairs and senior officials, including Democrat Tom Wheeler, Republican Mark Fowler, and seven other former officials, said Carr's warning was an attempt to intimidate broadcasters and prompt them to self-censor. In their view, good-faith coverage of public polls, even if they later prove to be fabricated, does not violate FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes.

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The FCC's only current Democratic member, Anna Gomez, also stressed that pollsters who deliberately mislead the public should be held accountable for their actions. At the same time, she said broadcasters cannot be punished for reporting publicly available data if they acted in good faith.

Admission of data fabrication

Carr's statement came after Wedgewood Polls admitted that it had published fabricated poll results. Representatives of the organization said they wanted to test whether media outlets, aggregators, and commentators would distribute the data without checking the source, methodology, and whether the company was real.

Wedgewood Polls said its data had been added to the aggregators of The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne, and VoteHub. However, FiftyPlusOne said it had been preparing a publication about possible fraud and had sent Wedgewood a request for comment. In response, the organization released a statement about the data fabrication. The New York Times said it used 15 Wedgewood polls in state-level and congressional district races, but did not include them in its aggregated measures of President Donald Trump's approval or nationwide polls on control of Congress.