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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

In my jurisdiction, any and all advertisement aimed at children is illegal, full stop. It continuously amazes me that this is not the norm in the rest of the world.

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Whereas in my jurisdiction (USA), corporate media conglomerates employ PhD trained child psychologists who research the exact pattern and timing of flashes and other stimuli to catch an iron grip on a child's attention.

Our children do not stand a chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi63rXnuWbw

Nor our adults, in 15-20 years

Nor our adults, now.

I find myself uncomfortably watching the threshold of will power and competence to use the internet safely creeping up slowly, but very steadily over time.

Sometimes I use a browser in a context where I have my ad-blocking shields down (someone else's system, a browser after an upgrade briefly trashes my config), and it's disturbing to me that despite being fully armed with HN-grade world-weary cynicism and the fact that I've been online for coming up on 25-ish years now (starting with BBSes before I could get on the Internet proper), that Taboola crap still sometimes takes conscious effort to not click on it, because it's that good. Goodness help me if they were any good at delivering what those articles promised, because what usually saves me is remembering that it's just straight up a lie. To be clear, this is still a sub-second process in my head, but it still disturbs me that they can get even that far.

I have two children, 9 and 6. I find myself wondering how long it's going to be before I can trust them on the Internet at all; is the necessary competence receding at a rate greater than one year per year? Ten years ago I would have confidently said "no", and my primary threat model would have been "don't do stupid things that get you computer viruses". Now it's ads, and this sort of crap.

By HN-comment standards this my reply is probably useless. But as a human being to another (who also has kids), well put. And creepy - I wonder the same.

>Our children do not stand a chance.

They do but it requires the parents ban any and all media with advertising.

I second that, and would like to bold caps scream IT REQUIRES PARENTS!

Sometimes I think that if speach was truly, literally unlimited and free (beer & otherwise) the problem wouldn’t be Nazis, hate speech, or trolling, but advertising and spam overwhelming everything else.

Imagine grey market viagra emails stomping on human cukture, forever.

Where is your jurisdiction?

Sweden, but on closer inspection it seems I was mistaken. There are, however, very strict rules:

• No junk mail addressed to anyone under 16 years of age.

• No TV advertisements directed towards, or meant to catch the attention of, anyone under 12 years of age. Additionally, in TV shows aimed at children below 12, there can be:

1. No commercials preceding or following the program, nor any commercial breaks in the program itself.

2. No product placements of any kind.

• People or characters from TV shows aimed at children below 12 are not allowed to do any product endorsements, in any context.

• All the above rules for TV shows also apply to the internet.

• Commercials aimed at anyone under 18 are not allowed to directly instruct the child to buy, or to ask anyone else to buy, the product.

• Commercials aimed at anyone under 18 can not be disguised as anything else; it must be clear that it is a commercial and nothing else. This includes in-app advertisements, which are therefore not allowed.

Source: https://www.konsumentverket.se/for-foretag/marknadsforing/re...

>> People or characters from TV shows aimed at children below 12 are not allowed to do any product endorsements, in any context.

I wonder how this is handled when the ad context is implicit. Isn't Spiderman's image, for example, always an implied advertisement for Marvel, his movies, action figures, and whatever cereal box he is appearing on this month.

I'm from The Netherlands, and I can't say for certain, but I can't remember a product being sold at a grocery store that had characters from a children's TV show/movie on the label to try and sell it.

Cereal is less of an issue in the first place (that's a very US thing, didn't even know it existed till I moved to the US when I was 10), but you just don't find brands associating themselves with characters from movies/tv shows.

The closes you get it Sinterklaas/Zwarte Piet on seasonal items and Santa Claus.

Action figures are something you have to get at a specific toy store. Large "super store" like WalMart/Target/others don't really exist. I can't go buy a couch at Albert Heijn. I don't go buy a TV at Aldi. In the US however going to Walmart for electronics is as normal as going to get groceries.

"I'm from The Netherlands, and I can't say for certain, but I can't remember a product being sold at a grocery store that had characters from a children's TV show/movie on the label to try and sell it"

What? You mustn't have any children. There is cereal of Frozen and Moana here, Paw Patrol sprinkles, k3 stuff (forgot which), there's various franchise stuff in the dairy section, ... That's not even counting the non-food section in supermarkets. Next time you're at albert heijn, take a good look around.

Wasn't that way when I was a kid...

Here's the cereal shelf of one of the larger supermarkets in the city centre of Copenhagen (still a fairly small supermarket).

Kellogs' products are on the bottom, only two boxes have child-appealing designs.

There was nothing worth photographing in the dairy section. One product was designed for children (cheese stick thing). A chocolate milkshake had a cartoon logo, but it has probably had that logo since 1950.

https://ibb.co/cQco8G

>Large "super store" like WalMart/Target/others don't really exist. I can't go buy a couch at Albert Heijn. I don't go buy a TV at Aldi. In the US however going to Walmart for electronics is as normal as going to get grocerie

You don’t get a TV at Aldi in the US either, and many (most?) Walmart stores don’t sell groceries

It's not implicit, cobranding just usually doesn't use words.

Out of curiosity, when no commercialization of childrens' shows is allowed, what is the financial incentive for the creators? Are the channels purchased and/or part of a subscription? Is there government funding? Do children shows suffer from lower quality of effort than adult shows since they are likely to make less money for the creators? All of that is probably fine, I am just curious as an outsider.

Creators are not paid by advertisements, they're paid by the channel that broadcasts. Either the channel will be subscription based, publicly funded, or are doing something like placing the children's content directly before adult content such as a news program.

In the case of Sweden there's a TV license funded broadcaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_Television

How about sugary foods in the supermarket, advertised with e.g. superheroes or idols on the packaging?

I’m guessing that those characters then are not deemed to be from media aimed at children younger than 12.

It's funny that the TV ad part has the "meant to catch the attention of" clause, but the junk mail part doesn't. So you could likely send a house flyers, or catalogues addressed to "homeowner" or whatever, of exclusively kids' toys, and that'd be fine.

Does "No product placements of any kind" apply to animated shows that are themselves placing a product? Do they not have shows like Pokemon, Bionicle or Transformers in Sweden?

Sweden ?

Yes, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15672343

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