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2d ago

What If We Made Advertising Illegal?

What If We Made Advertising Illegal?

The idea feels like sci-fi because you're so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.
The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn't been valid for decades.

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2d ago

What If We Made Advertising Illegal?

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342 comments

That'd be great, but the "how" is a much harder question. What counts as advertising? Because there's a reason Google, Meta, etc. have their fingers in so many different industries: every single thing that gets attention could be leveraged for advertising, even the act of suppressing mentions of competitors.
Should I be able to say "X product has been great, I recommend it!" Only if I'm not being paid, you say? How could you possibly know?
As discussed in the article, "propaganda" is illegal. So any discussion about how terrible trump is would also be illegal. Propaganda doesn't mean false, it just means it's trying to convince you of something. An advertisement. Heck, the article itself could be considered a form of advertising for legislation.
It's just so trivial of a concept to say, but the moment you spend any amount of time thinking about it, it falls apart. It's like trying to ban the Ship of Theseus from a club.
- That'd be great, but the "how" is a much harder question.
  As with the implementation of any obvious law, of course.
  What counts as advertising? Because there's a reason Google, Meta, etc. have their fingers in so many different industries: every single thing that gets attention could be leveraged for advertising, even the act of suppressing mentions of competitors.
  Sure, maybe that's an interesting question.
  After all television commercials and magazine inserts and pop up ads and billboards are gone we can start debating the nuance of where exactly the line is drawn.
  Should I be able to say "X product has been great, I recommend it!" Only if I'm not being paid, you say?
  Correct!
  How could you possibly know?
  You would have to report that income on your taxes and if you ever get audited and that was a substantial amount of your income they will find out and go after the major players who are profiting off it illegally at tax time.
  Think about gambling or alcohol. How do we know you aren't selling unlicensed alcohol or running an unlicensed casino? We still have laws despite the uncertainty.
  As discussed in the article, "propaganda" is illegal. So any discussion about how terrible trump is would also be illegal.
  I feel like you're confused about the difference between speech and propaganda. Discussion about Trump isn't propaganda.
  I know we currently do not, but it is possible to treat an individual and a business/corporation differently.
  It is possible to hold an organizations speech to different standards than an individual.
  The discussion of outlawing propaganda doesn't have to have anything to do with your individual ability to express your opinion up until the point you try to organize and artificially broadcast that speech wider than you could on your own.
  
  So, first off, any content made to change your mind is propaganda. Doesn't matter how true or false it is, doesn't matter if it's cherry-picking info, doesn't matter if it doesn't make any claims at all, doesn't matter if it's paid for by a state or a religious group or a single individual. And it HAS to be defined this way, because there does not exist an impartial arbitrating party to draw a distinction for us. If we try to limit it only to information meant to mislead, then we have to figure out who decides whether something is misleading.
  A poster that just says "hang in there" or "just give up" can be used as propaganda if you post it all over the place to raise or lower morale. It's not making any claims, it's not pushing a certain brand, it's just trying to change what you think about. That's propaganda.
  Second, this whole thing assumes no one ever wants to see an advertisement. But if you're arguing honestly, the reality is that sometimes you do. You want to know your favorite band is playing downtown. You want to know that the roofing company across town that does good work even exists. You want to know about whatever new silly product was made that aligns with your hobbies. In order to have an honest conversation, we need to agree that not all advertising is unwanted.
  all television commercials and magazine inserts and pop up ads and billboards are gone we can start debating the nuance of where exactly the line is drawn
  Would PSAs be banned? Those are nothing if not propaganda. How about billboards advertising a religious group? What if I buy a magazine because it does a great job at making me aware of products I actually do often want to buy?
  You would have to report that income on your taxes
  And what if I benefit in an indirect, difficult way to trace outside of being paid? Or what if it's MY company?
  know we currently do not, but it is possible to treat an individual and a business/corporation differently...It is possible to hold an organizations speech to different standards than an individual.
  As a small business owner, how do I make customers aware that I exist?
  until the point you try to organize and artificially broadcast that speech wider than you could on your own.
  Where is that line? We've invented so many things that amplify our speech wider than what we could do "on our own". A megaphone reaches more people than if I yell. A 10ft sign in my yard reaches more people than a tshirt. A social media account with 1 million followers reaches people than 1000 followers reaches more than 10 followers. Should I be able to make a flyer? Should I be able to use a printing press to copy that flyer? Should i be able to nail copes of that flyer all over the door of the catholic church and start a Reformation? Where is the line?
  (It's also worth reading up on the history of advertising in television in the UK. The idea of creating legislation to limit the prevalence of advertising is not new, and neither are the methods used to work around them.)
  In summary, this is a very hard problem, but...I think the solution could be solved democratically. I don't think the solution lies in trying to rigorously define what constitutes an ad, only for the form of an ad to morph. Rather, it lies in disincentivizing people seeing unwanted ads in the first place. The fact that people look around and see ads they don't want to see needs to be translated directly into some kind of proportional tax.
  Ex. If you poll the people, and they say "I see too many McDonalds ads" then the people (i.e. govt) should penalize McDonalds proportionally. If we poll again, and the penalty doesn't result in people reporting seeing fewer unwanted McDonalds ads, then increase the penalty. When the penalty is high enough, it won't be worth it for McDonalds to run so many aggressive ads, and they'll have to reduce advertising in order for the people to report fewer unwanted ads in order for the penalty to drop. That's the only possible implementation I see as actually working.
  
  Thanks for writing an essay so I no longer feel the need to lol. I hope your post gets more visibility.
  I fucking hate advertising. I want it banned to the greatest extent that we can do so. But if we want actual change, it needs to be a lawfully applicable strategy. We don't need to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Banning ads for medication is a great start that everyone can agree on for instance. We should work up from there.
  The most insidious stuff is the content you don't even realize is an ad, like comments and methods of boosting/lowering visibility on social media. That is a thorny issue.
  
  So, first off, any content made to change your mind is propaganda. Doesn't matter how true or false it is, doesn't matter if it's cherry-picking info, doesn't matter if it doesn't make any claims at all
  This is the second time this has been stated. I don't know why we're going backwards, I haven't challenged the definition of propaganda.
  doesn't matter if it's paid for by a state or a religious group or a single individual
  Exactly. Under this law all these scenarios would be banned.
  That's the conversation we're having, how to ban it.
  A poster that just says "hang in there" or "just give up" can be used as propaganda if you post it all over the place to raise or lower morale. It's not making any claims, it's not pushing a certain brand, it's just trying to change what you think about. That's propaganda.
  The law wouldn't target things that "can be used" for propaganda, they'd target things that are used for propaganda.
  If some individual wants to go around and spend his own money putting up "Hang in there" posters, that's fine.
  If they want to pay someone to hang up posters for them, that's when they'd run into issues.
  If a public space or place of business wants to put up a sign, you might make exceptions for things like emergency evacuations and informational material, but anything with "intent to advertise a brand or product" would certainly be banned.
  "Hang in there" might end up being allowed or not in a workplace depending on how strict you'd like to get.
  Second, this whole thing assumes no one ever wants to see an advertisement.
  You want to know your favorite band is playing downtown. You want to know that the roofing company across town that does good work even exists. You want to know about whatever new silly product was made that aligns with your hobbies. In order to have an honest conversation, we need to agree that not all advertising is unwanted.
  Its weird you're acting like I'm dishonest. This is a pretty simple concept.
  Unwanted advertisement are unwanted.
  The companies are still allowed to create materials, and you're allowed to view it. They just aren't allowed to pay people to shove it in your face when you're trying to watch TV or read the news.
  Of course there's value in knowing about products and deals, but if company's are the ones paying for them then the companies with the most money get seen and heard the most.
  That's a problem because throwing money at ads can compensate for a sub par product. Keeping advertisements independent from the companies selling them is better for consumers as it leads to less biased info.
  If you want to buy a catalog of local events, that's fine people can make those "advertisements" and sell them. It would be illegal for the people operating them to have connections or take money from the companies, and these aren't explicitly ads but genuine reviews basically.
  You can print a list of bands and distribute it, you just can't advertise the band in some unrelated product.
  Would PSAs be banned? Those are nothing if not propaganda.
  Exceptions could be made for anything if we want.
  What do you think? Would you ban PSAs? I might not.
  How about billboards advertising a religious group?
  100% banned. No billboards allowed.
  What if I buy a magazine because it does a great job at making me aware of products I actually do often want to buy?
  Still exists. The magazine just can't take money to artificially promote shitty brands who pay them so the magazine is higher quality.
  (That's obviously slightly naive, we're crashing the entire magazine industry by passing this law, it's too disruptive in the short term to the economy we've set up)
  As a small business owner, how do I make customers aware that I exist?
  You wouldn't have to. Word of mouth and the community curated lists would talk about you if you're worth talking about.
  If no one can advertise then consumers are still gonna need to find the products they need and consumers will learn how to look for local businesses and the community will learn how to spotlight hidden gems.
  Or maybe that's too much effort and we all just go to walmart and you go out of business. Hopefully not, but i don't fully know tbh, it's untested.
  Where is that line? We've invented so many things that amplify our speech wider than what we could do "on our own". A megaphone reaches more people than if I yell. A 10ft sign in my yard reaches more people than a tshirt. A social media account with 1 million followers reaches people than 1000 followers reaches more than 10 followers. Should I be able to make a flyer? Should I be able to use a printing press to copy that flyer? Should i be able to nail copes of that flyer all over the door of the catholic church and start a Reformation? Where is the line?
  Yep, you should be able to do all of that (except the social media one possibly depending on context) because they're all actions of a single individual and no money is being spent of the distribution of the material.
  (You can pay a printer to print the flyers but not hand out essentially).
  If you want to rent a plane and drop them from the sky go ahead but you can't do that as a business or to make money in any way.
  In summary, this is a very hard problem, but...I think the solution could be solved democratically.
  I agree, it would take a lot of trial and error but we could eventually figure it out.
  We won't because money is too powerful, but we could.
  Ex. If you poll the people, and they say "I see too many McDonalds ads" then the people (i.e. govt) should penalize McDonalds proportionally. If we poll again, and the penalty doesn't result in people reporting seeing fewer unwanted McDonalds ads, then increase the penalty. When the penalty is high enough, it won't be worth it for McDonalds to run so many aggressive ads, and they'll have to reduce advertising in order for the people to report fewer unwanted ads in order for the penalty to drop. That's the only possible implementation I see as actually working.
  I honestly don't like that idea. We're not seeing less ads, we're just seeing more diverse ads.
  Genuinely consider the implications of the fact that advertisements are effective.
  Think of the most irritating, scummy, clickbait, insidious advertisement you've ever seen, and then consider that it objectively made the company more money than not running it.
  Realize that your small business is directly losing customers because you aren't able to compete with the marketing budgets of megacorporations.
  Its not fair for your company and thus us as consumers they get to pay to hold the megaphone longer than you do and don't compete by the quality of their products/service. It's a bad problem.
- The phrase "ban advertising" is reductive. Different countries have different laws around ads. For example, anime shows have bumpers in them because in Japan they are required by law to clearly indicate when advertising starts and stops.
  There's also laws against billboards, against targeting children, against specific industries, and limiting the amount of advertising available. I could see laws against targeted ads like Meta uses being implemented as well.
- What counts as advertising?
  Let's say you ban ad breaks on TV / streams. In the early days of radio and TV they didn't have ad breaks, the host of the show would just go on for a while about his favourite brand of cigarettes. In the modern world, pretty much any time you see a name brand in a TV show or movie, it's because they've been paid for product placement.
  So... you could solve that by never allowing the mentioning of any brand name in any form of media. That would make reviews illegal. That's fair, I suppose, because reviews are definitely seen as a form of advertising. That's why companies often provide review copies of things for free to journalists in the hope they might talk/write about them. Maybe you could carve out an exception allowing a brand and model to be mentioned if there are safety issues or product recalls?
  Ok, so now you have a Formula 1 event, it's on TV but you have to pay for that broadcast because it's not ad supported. The cars, of course, don't have any ads on them. But, are they allowed to have the manufacturer's name and logo on them? Is it advertising if say Ferrari puts a lot of money into F1, wins a lot, and so when you watch the news you see Ferrari-red cars with Ferrari logos winning a race? Also, could the drivers wear coveralls with the Ferrari logo on them? What about fans of Ferrari, could they wear a shirt with the Ferrari logo on them if they were simply fans of the brand? What if this supposed Ferrari fan were a supermodel? Does someone have to carefully go through the finances of any very attractive person to see if they're ever wearing a logo not because they're a fan but because they've been compensated?
  I'm in favour of reducing the amount of advertising we see. I think it's a bit absurd now. But, while it's possible to tax it or regulate it, I think it would be very hard to completely eliminate it.

342 comments