Comment by scarface_74
2 months ago
So we want the government to decide what is advertising and propaganda? Is telling people about the wrongs of government propaganda? Is going door to door about have you made Jesus the head of your life propaganda?
The point is that advertising and propaganda are indistinguishable. Going door-to-door to talk about Jesus is the same as going door-to-door to talk about vacuums, but neither is anything like roadside billboards or programmatic advertising. We can ditch the billboards and the programmatic advertising and get a better world, even if some advertisers and propagandists still go door-to-door. At least when it’s door-to-door the advertiser/propagandist has to really work for it, and you have the option of just not opening the door.
Something like the dearly departed Equal Time Doctrine, but more expansive across all politocal comms might be a sufficient detergent.
If I publish a website of my views, do I have to publish opposing views? Do religious channels and sites have to publish pro choice opinions? Do you have to publish opposing views about vaccines that they cause autism? Do you also have to give equal time to people who believe the “election was stolen”?
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Animated LED billboards are the worst :(
So it’s just “programmatic advertising” that should be banned and not self hosted advertising by an internal sales team?
If I have to seek it out, say a product catalog or a website, it really isn't marketing or advertising.
The "problem" is that everything is vying for our attention because the internet made it vastly cheaper for any random joe blow to force a set of pixels in front of our faces.
That's the distinction. If I can't ignore it, then it shouldn't be legal. Companies should have no right to my attention.
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No, that should be banned as well.
Yeah? The government defines what is murder, defines what is tax evasion, and defines tons of other stuff already? Some states already have laws against billboards?
How would you like the government deciding some cause they didn’t agree with is advertising?
If you live in a conservative state, what are the chances that they say advocacy for Planned Parenthood is advertising and say that advocacy for pro-life is freedom of religion?
And how would that work over the Internet? Are you going to block foreign websites?
I can give you a real world example. Florida requires age verification for porn sites. Sites not based in the US including the ones owned by MindGeek just ignored it.
> If you live in a conservative state, what are the chances that they say advocacy for Planned Parenthood is advertising and say that advocacy for pro-life is freedom of religion?
A nonsensical argument. You might as well ask how "Oh yeah, you want to ban murder? Well how would you like it if conservative states say that abortion is murder, and killing negroes isn't? Clearly outlawing murder is unworkable."
Great job pointing out that laws can be misinterpreted by motivated judges, I guess we should get rid of all the laws then to make sure that doesn't happen.
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We can start by banning ads for products and services that cost money.
> And how would that work over the Internet? Are you going to block foreign websites?
We just address the big platforms. No need to be exhaustive in the first attempt.
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