When an advertising watchdog chases its tail

Why did the Advertising Standards Authority look at a bunch of misinformation - and agree with it?

Hi,

Covid continues to travel around New Zealand, and yes — people are dying.

A tribute posted online

The sad thing with that particular case is that prior to passing way from Covid, Rex went down an anti-vax, Covid conspiracy rabbit hole he just couldn’t escape.

A post from Rex’s personal Facebook page on October 22

“The world’s greatest scam” is killing people — and so it’s frustrating to see yet another misleading pamphlet drop from Voices for Freedom — thousands of these things appearing in letterboxes across Auckland City:

A Voices for Freedom pamphlet that appeared across Auckland this week

I wrote about Voices for Freedom in New Zealand Goes Loopy. To cut a long story short, VFF attempt to appear sane and reasonable — but are anything but:

“Voices for Freedom was founded by Claire Deeks, a failed political party candidate for a failed political party. Deeks has been a practicing lawyer (yep, the legal profession has its fare share of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists) and loves a good roast chicken:

Claire Deeks with a dead chicken

Before she went down the rabbit hole, Deeks was into wellness, starting a “paleo kid’s food blog” called Dom’s Kitchen.

Deeks formed Voices of Freedom with two prominent members of New Zealand’s knitting community: Libby Jonson of ‘Truly Myrtle’, and Alia Bland of ‘Little Bee’.

The latest VFF flyer was full of the usual bullshit we’ve come to expect from this anti-vax, anti-mask crowd: But I noticed something else on their leaflet that was a little surprising. Excuse the pixelation, but on the top right is a “tick” from the Advertising Standards Authority.

Underneath the tick, this:

“The Complaints Board agreed that none of the six statements made in the advertisement were misleading because they had been adequately substantiated in the context of advocacy advertising.”

“Huh,” I thought.

I assumed the ASA hadn’t provided that official tick — that was just something VFF had whipped up in Photoshop. However I did wonder if New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority had “agreed that none of the six statements made in the advertisement were misleading.”

I immediately emailed the ASA, asking: “I see this letterbox drop has happened across Auckland by Voices For Freedom — and it includes an element that says the ASA claims that “six statements” are not misleading. Any clarity appreciated.”

Last night their CEO, Hilary Souter, got back to me:

In short, Souter couldn’t comment on the current leaflet drop with its “ASA tick”, because it too is subject to complaints.

She also didn’t directly say anything about the claim that “none of the six statements made in the advertisement were misleading”, instead linking me to three previous ASA decisions on their website, about former complaints against Voices for Freedom.

Which I then read.

In short — two of those three complaints were “upheld in part”, meaning that some of VFF’s past leaflets were deemed “bullshit”, meaning they could no longer be distributed.

The third complaint is interesting, though — and it’s the one proudly cited on their latest pamphlet drop. It’s interesting because the outcome of a complaint is listed as “Not Upheld”.

This result would have been like Christmas for the crackpot voices at Voices for Freedom. Suddenly they could use this ruling generated by the ASA on their future pamphlets — a sort of guarantee their information was “accurate”.

I read on, to see why the ASA had ruled this way.

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A look at the ruling

The ruling by the ASA is quite long and quite boring. You can read it here if you like.

In short, the complaint they were tasked at assessing was this:

The Complainant was concerned this advertisement was making false claims about the effectiveness of face masks and the environmental impact they will have.

As I mentioned above, after looking at the claims made by VFF they concluded that: “In accordance with the majority, the Complaints Board ruled the advertisement was not misleading […] and ruled the complaint was Not Upheld.”

In answer to the question “Were any of the statements in the leaflet misleading?” the Complaints Board “agreed that none of the six statements made in the advertisement were misleading, because they had been adequately substantiated in the context of advocacy advertising.”

What is “advocacy advertising?” Well, it’s an acknowledgment that some advertising is different to others — and that ads from lobby groups need to be treated differently to, say, an ad for a toaster. Why? To be honest, I’m not fucking sure. But the ASA says “While a more liberal interpretation of the requirement for truthful presentation is provided for in advocacy advertising, statements presented as facts need to be adequately supported.”

And it’s that last bit all this boils down to: Statements presented as facts need to be adequately supported.”

Let’s look at the claims made by anti-vax group Voices for Freedom (in bold), followed by the responses to those facts by the ASA:

1. Typical mask wearing does not reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection rates (COVID-19)

The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated. The Board noted the Annals of Internal Medicine article provided by the Advertiser titled “Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers” provided sufficient substantiation in the context of an advocacy advertisement.

2. SARS-CoV-2 viral particles are tiny and can easily pass through mask fibres

The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated. The Board noted the PubMed and Online articles provided by the Advertiser provided some level of substantiation.

3. Up to 98% of viral particles may pass through cloth masks!

The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated. The Board noted the PubMed and Oxford Academic articles provided by the Advertiser.

4. Masks have been shown to cause hypoxia (deprivation of adequate oxygen)

The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a low level factual claim, and it had been adequately substantiated. The Board noted the PubMed and United States Department of Labour articles provided by the Advertiser provided sufficient support for the level of claim made.

5. More than 1.5 BILLION face masks will pollute the oceans this year!

The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated. The Board noted the New York Post article provided by the Advertiser titled “More than 1.5 billion face masks will pollute oceans this year, report says”. The Board said although the article does not refer specifically to the science behind this statement, the average consumer would accept the underlying suggestion that the production of such a huge number of masks is likely to result in significant environmental pollution.

6. A mask exemption is available to anyone with a physical or mental health illness, condition or disability that makes wearing a face covering unsuitable.

The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated. The Board noted the link to the New Zealand Government United Against COVID website.

Okay. In short — I call bullshit on most of that.

Bullshit from Voices for Freedom.

Bullshit back from the ASA.

Bullshit from everyone involved.

From what I could tell, people at the ASA had sort of clicked some links provided to them by Voices for Freedom, as well a bit of freestyle Googling.

So: Let’s look at all of this again, but add the voice of a qualified doctor — Dr Morgan Edwards — who regularly debunks Covid nonsense on her public Instagram page.

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Claim 1

Anti-Vax conspiracy group Voices for Freedom: Typical mask wearing does not reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection rates (COVID-19)

The ASA: The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated.

Dr Morgan Edwards:
Wrong. Plenty of science to suggest it’s helpful hence the WHO, CDC and countless scientific public health bodies recommending mask use. Obviously it is in conjunction with other measures such as hand hygiene and social distancing and staying home if sick. 

One observational study has directly analyzed the impact of mask use in the community on COVID-19 transmission. It looked at secondary transmission in Beijing households by face mask use, and found masks 79% effective in preventing transmission.

Another study found masks strongly protective, with a risk reduction of 70% in people who wear masks when leaving the house

Importantly, a large study in Bangladesh found that masks reduced SARS-CoV-2 transmission significantly, especially amongst adults over 60 years.

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Claim 2

Anti-Vax conspiracy group Voices for Freedom: “SARS-CoV-2 viral particles are tiny and can easily pass through mask fibres”

The ASA: “The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated.”

Dr Morgan Edwards:
They are tiny, but can be filtered. Especially if part of a larger droplet — filtered by both expellers’ mask and potentially also the inhalers’.  It won’t filter every single virus particle, but that doesn’t null and void the benefit of wearing one. Speed limits don’t stop accidents but they generally reduce the harm. 

Because people with symptoms, including coughing and sneezing, are generally expected to stay home, it’s important to focus on the particles of speaking and breathing. Masks offer a critical barrier for these particles in particular.

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Claim 3

Anti-Vax conspiracy group Voices for Freedom: “Up to 98% of viral particles may pass through cloth masks!”

The ASA: “The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated.”

Dr Morgan Edwards:
The efficacy of the mask depends on material and design of mask, but it never even approaches anything as low as 98%!

The Bangladesh mask study showed that whilst surgical masks were superior to cloth masks, that cloth mask wearing did significantly reduce transmission too.

Generally available household materials have between a 58% and 94% filtration rate for 1-μm particles, whereas surgical masks filtered 96% of those particles.

A tea cloth mask filters 60% of particles between 0.02 μm and 1 μm, and surgical masks filter 75%.

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Claim 4

Anti-Vax conspiracy group Voices for Freedom: “Masks have been shown to cause hypoxia (deprivation of adequate oxygen)”

The ASA: “The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a low level factual claim, and it had been adequately substantiated.”

Dr Morgan Edwards:
Just no. Not in standard use of a normal mask. Unless you stuff them in someone’s mouth and suffocate them or make a tight fitting plastic mask. How on earth would I do my job if I was hypoxic wearing a mask?

This study of 50 adult volunteers had this conclusion: The risk of pathologic gas exchange impairment with cloth masks and surgical masks is near-zero in the general adult population.

This study looked at older people and also found no development of hypoxia.

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Claim 5

Anti-Vax conspiracy group Voices for Freedom: “More than 1.5 BILLION face masks will pollute the oceans this year!”

The ASA: “The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated.”

Dr Morgan Edwards:
People need to be tidy kiwis!

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Claim 6

Anti-Vax conspiracy group Voices for Freedom: “A mask exemption is available to anyone with a physical or mental health illness, condition or disability that makes wearing a face covering unsuitable.”

The ASA: “The Complaints Board agreed this statement was presented as a fact, and it had been adequately substantiated.”

Dr Morgan Edwards:
Yes. We are being kind. This shouldn’t be taken advantage of by jerks. 

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WTF.

It’s utterly puzzling to me why the ASA would rule “adequately substantiated” on things that were almost entirely unsubstantiated.

With that in mind, I went back to the ASA — seeking clarity on how they arrived at their version of the truth.

But it would seem questions about this old pamphlet were unable to be answered while they investigated the new pamphlet. This is what they replied with:

“While I understand you are seeking specific comment on the Voices for Freedom pamphlets and the adjudication of claims about masks, I cannot comment further on this as we have received complaints on the current version of the pamphlets.”

Hilary Souter then reverted back to the concept that “advocacy ads” are different to, er, other ads: “What I can say is advocacy advertisements are dealt with quite differently than advertisements for goods and services. This is because they’re often characterised by parties having different views expressed in robust terms.”

Look to be honest I don’t really understand why there should be a difference. Plus — all I wanted to know was how the ASA arrived at the wrong answers at least five of the six “facts”.

Because people are dying from misinformation.

(This is wrong)

And it’s one thing to have some madcap outsiders ranting and raving — it seems another entirely when our advertising watchdogs start endorsing their approach.

David.

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