100% Guaranteed (Not a Guarantee): Putting a Price on Truth
In a seventh-season episode of The Simpsons, Bart tunes in to the Impulse Buying Network and spends $350 on an animation cel from The Itchy & Scratchy Show. As part of the pitch, an IBN huckster proclaims: “Each one is absolutely positively 100% guaranteed to increase in value!” An immediate disclaimer follows: “not a guarantee.” The joke lands on a familiar premise—guarantees aren’t real.
But they are real. Evidence shows guarantees can signal quality and encourage transactions. Firms that guarantee products or services often see substantial gains in business.
At a recent conference in Boston, we examined proposals for “truth guarantees” and similar market-oriented approaches aimed at mitigating “misinformation.” Guaranteeing truth could improve content quality, increase trust in journalism, and bolster the reliability of social media—especially if platforms boost guaranteed items. These proposals, however, face several challenges.