UK bans daytime TV ads for cereals, muffins and burgers | Hacker News Reader

UK bans daytime TV ads for cereals, muffins and burgers

france24.com

295 pointsivewonyoung337 comments

What about adverts on YouTube and TikTok and other online platforms? I doubt kids/teenagers watch much TV at all these days.

"This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online.",

it's a quote from the article, it's very likely they'd ban ads targeted at children.

I expect a lot of pushback from the new u.s administration about any online regulations.

The regulation would apply to the UK. UK brands and goods sold in the UK, by established/registered companies the UK. Not possible to sell any retail goods of the sorts w/o a registration in the UK, so stopping them advertising won't be hard.

I don't think US administration would be able to do anything, much like GDPR.

Tarrifs and other threats

What about Mr Beast video sponsored by McDonalds (for the sake of specificity, a new McMuffin available in every country on earth)?

> I don't think US administration would be able to do anything, much like GDPR.

We live in a different world to the mid-late 2010s. For better or worse, I'm fairly confident Musk and Zuckerberg will have input on US trade policy on these issues.

> For better or worse, I'm fairly confident Musk and Zuckerberg will have input on US trade policy on these issues.

Input, yes.

May even be able to get the US to threaten a trade war or to leave NATO if they can't rake in the advertising dollars.

But I think the former would be seen as Trump being Trump and the latter as a bluff, and in both cases it would be reason to more permanently disentangle the UK economy from the US economy and defence relationship than to dry away the crocodile tears of multibillonaires.

The US has more leverage over the UK then perhaps any other country. Largely because of the shared political culture.

They could throw hand grenades into British politics by declassifying embarrassing events involving British soldiers in Iraq, investigating tax issues with labour party donors (many of whom conduct business in the US) or recognising Northern Ireland as part of the Republic of Ireland.

Attacking the British economy would be a political mistake, because a well advised politician would use it as a scapegoat for any economic problem in the UK. Similar with defence - e.g the withdrawal of intelligence cooperation could allow a terrorist attack to be blamed on Trump rather than MI5/MI6 funding stress.

Seems plausible, though I still think the US threatening to do that, let alone actually doing that, is more likely to cause a separation between the US and UK than to be taken seriously (in the sense of getting the UK to change course).

The UK did just go through having Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, after all, who spent his time in office demonstrating that being completely shameless is a viable solution to almost all blackmail — he only fell when there were photos of him partying in the same period he was on TV telling people they couldn't do that or visit dying relatives because COVID lockdown, everything else wrong was basically ignored.

McDonalds is likely to be responsible for the contents in that regard I'd presume (esp since they do own the trademark). This is what I meant by corporations registered in the UK.

In a similar vein gambling content targeted at kids would have a similar approach. Keep in mind the businesses still need to be able to sell in the UK.

For Youtube often the content is an ad too. Will Google need to stop serving huge swaths of content to the UK at certain times? Hope so!

I got news for you.

Kids entertainment has almost always been ads.

Disney movies are marketing for toys. Same with TV shows and cartoons.

>content to the UK at certain times? Hope so!

We have no idea how/where it'd end up (with). If I understand anything about regulations (which is doubtful of course), the advertisers, themselves, would be on the hook.

According to this link Food and Beverage ads are already prohibited on YouTube kids. I don't know if this is a US specific policy but I presume its similar elsewhere.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?hl=en#zipp...

It baffles me that more countries haven't put legislation in place to severely limit what ads can be served to under 18 year olds (or at least under 16).

I worked in an ad agency a number of years ago, and Phillip Morris approached us with a deliberate plan to launch big budget ad campaigns on social media platforms specifically because they could get in front of younger demos more easily (traditional media having existing regulations in my country).

The original idea was to build a large database of prospects to sell direct to even after regulation eventually cracks down on them. Amazingly no regulation has come yet, and Meta has done little to no self-regulation.

You can blame parents, but even then one under appreciated problem with digital ads is the lack of shared experience. With TV advertising, you know what your kid is seeing, everyone can see a verify what ad ran at what time on what channel etc. If a parent and a kid are scrolling social media their experience is entirely different, and you can't go back and see what someone else has seen.

Probably because being tracked across all platforms is a bad idea in a democractic/liberal type of country, and not worth the "think of the children" argument. At some point parents have to take some responsibility.

First, I’m not sure being tracked across all platforms is actually a requirement here. On device age verification and device attestation and/or simply assuming anonymous users are under 18 from an ad safety perspective would allow a level of anonymity across platforms. It might also help solve a large chunk of ad fraud.

Second, I think you really need strong evidence to say that the upside you’re asserting is truly worth sacrificing kids safety.

> At some point parents have to take some responsibility

By voting for the party that promises to enforce bans against it?

There's more than one way to be responsible, and it's not good to be a "helicopter parent" even if you have enough free time to actually pair-browse the internet with your kid, and even if you did that doesn't stop them seeing inappropriate content or ads it just means there's a witness who knows they saw inappropriate content or ads.

Even voting is influenced by social media campaign as recently seen in Romania, Moldova and Georgia. The right approach is ban the behaviour and fine the perpetrators like the EU does. If you can't punish the perps, fine the ad delivery network instead.

My kid recently got a second hand iPad tablet. On it, she uses YouTube Kids. I made an account for her. Now, they ask _me_ for consent, since she cannot legally give it. They throw ads at her about toys, but this is illegal in my country to target children with ads. Ads are supposed to target parents, not kids. Now, if it were one ad at start, I'd hate it, but they go further: in a 10-minute movie, the thing quits like 3 times to show my kid an ad. She barely has the attention span to watch the bloody vid! You know why they do it? Not because it is legal; because they get away with it. Law is irrelevant if it isn't uphold.

That’s the other thing as well, we need to spend more time upholding laws that already exist instead of getting distracted with these weird news publisher content regulations like Canada has.

And Programmatic advertising makes this extremely difficult. Once you add a giant, automated ad exchange to advertising you've created opaque supply chains that help make it trivial to obfuscate who actually makes money from an ad. This article on ad fraud goes into more detail: https://xenoss.io/blog/programmatic-ad-fraud-detection

Agree on issues with programmatic. Compared to the number of dollars, and in particular number of dollars being spent on ads served to under 18s, programmatic is a rounding error compared to Google, Meta, TikTok etc.

https://www.emarketer.com/uploads/pdf/US_Ad_Spending_2023.pd...

Whoah good point. Man for how small that market is they sure spend a lot of time screwing it up. Given their closed systems, do Google, Meta and TikTok have tighter controls over ads served to kids that they just aren't applying, or is it something else?

Over the years it’s hard to grok just how small ‘traditional’ media has become. Messing up programmatic and letting a ton of scam tech vendors take most of the money out of the system is a large part of that problem.

My experience is that the big vendors are better than scummy programmatic platforms in terms of ‘safety’ but even then not by much.

Even YouTube’s ‘for kids’ product consistently has scandals break out about it which says where the company’s priorities are.

You have the power to stop this: disable the app if you believe the ads are harming your child, or opt to pay for YT or another kids video service that doesn't serve ads.

One issue is that YT is possibly violating the law. A separate issue is that parents are allowing children to continue consuming harmful ad content on an app.

Not sure if YT for kids falls in this category exactly but the social nature of a lot of these products means that cutting your kid off also has negative effects in their social circle when all their friends are on the networks. That’s why collective action is needed, not just the action of individual parents.

If we all stand around and wait for the collective action to start, it never will. imo start by making informed choices and sharing your reasons when asked.

Shrugging at brainworms being inserted into your child and shrugging with a "well that's just the world we live in" is mind boggling to me. Heck, when i grew up there were kids without TV at home. They survived pretty well, despite a bit of social disconnect.

I always hear this argument - is there any actual evidence that this is true though?

This is one of the worst parts. Social participation requires access to screens.

If you think having screens hurts kids mental health, wait until you take them away!

I have a pretty staunch policy for my kids. I don't mind paying for something if price us reasonable. Malware, nagware, adware however? No.

However there's two parents. So I draw a firm line at malware but allow adware. Especially also since grandma is OK with playing a F2P game with them helping them get past the ads. On the bright side: they certainly do learn to hate advertising. And dark patterns. Their little fingers are better at clucking the small X than mine!

Either way, I will figure out how to stop the nonsense without paying the mob my overly expensive contribution.

You could use https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist

I don't know if apple will allow you to do it on an ipad, but even very young kids can learn to use something like newpipe or yt-dlp which can download videos and removes youtube's ads. If nothing else you could download ad-free videos and copy them to a device so there's a massive library of safe media you've vetted and wont have to worry about.

I use YouTube ReVanced and NewPipe on my own snartphones but I have not figured out of how block ads on the iPad (it does use DNS-based blocking via Unbound blocklists on OPNsense), she just got the iPad for a few days. On our smartphones, the children are the primary users of YouTube (on STB too, there we use SmartTube). Even YouTube Premium Family I had was primarily for my children. However they increased the subscription costs and went after people who set a different country than where they were located (I used India and paid 2 EUR a month). Now I am forced to pay the price if The Netherlands which is an illegal geolock since I should be allowed to define I am from elsewhere in EU (because I might be from Romania, living in The Netherlands).

If your child watches a lot of YouTube, or any at all really, you should really invest in YouTube premium. It's incredible how much people use YouTube but because there is a free option, few bother to fork over $14 a month to remove ads, especially when it vastly improves the experience for your children. In a case like this I think the obvious solution is self-regulation.

Indeed. The problem is, regulating online ads is much trickier

I could see supporting with this, but it does seem like an abuse of the 'for the children' argument for this.

Children pretty much have to eat what you give them until they get a job.

Also some chicken nuggets are bad, but some average a gram of protein per 10 calories, which is a pretty good ratio, and especially for frozen food. Can't help but think this is too broad.

more so in the past, there was a lot more food advertising directed at kids, because the thought was that kids could annoy their parents enough to drag the whole family to an establishment. and some marketing tricks work a lot better on children because of their social settings and general impulsiveness (e.g. "All the cool kids have Lunchables")

The milky bar kid is strong and tough

The red car and the blue car had a race

Turn the milk chocolatey

Keep hunger locked up tip lunch

I have tried to avoid adverts for 20 years, but the adverts of my childhood (not just ones aimed at kids - autoglass repair and replace, safe style do buy one get one free, dfs sale ends Sunday, ronseal quick drying wood stain does exactly what it says on the tin)

The brainwashing is sickening.

HEAD ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!!!!!

I still remember phone numbers from radio ads I heard as a kid. I don't have any phone number memorized apart from my own

All red wants to do is stuff his face! Overeating bad, according to that ad. Other than Milky Ways.

> autoglass repair and replace, safe style do buy one get one free, dfs sale ends Sunday, ronseal quick drying wood stain does exactly what it says on the tin

A golem carved out of butter playing a trombone, an animated blue telephone, a puppy stealing toilet paper, Boddingtons.

Same vibes, different details.

> nd some marketing tricks work a lot better on children because of their social settings and general impulsiveness

Kids don't have the defenses against manipulation, especially when it's refined by billions in research dollars and decades of work by scientists and psychologists dedicated to exploiting their young minds.

Research has shown that kids (even into their teens) can't tell the difference between ads and content. They don't even know an ad when they see one, and the line between ad and content is often intentionally blurred. I've even seen adults struggle to identify ads when they're right in their face.

This is not systems thinking though. It take a lot of will for parents to fight kids desire for junk food from social pressure alone. Should parents be perfect citizens that make 10000 correct micro decisions a month correctly every time? Or can society help a bit by blocking some of the predators?

It is like "just say no". Thay'll do it for drug addicition. Simple.

> Children pretty much have to eat what you give them until they get a job.

I don’t think this is true in practice; it feels sufficiently obvious that children’s tastes influence what they get fed that I’m not going to bother to find a citation

> Children pretty much have to eat what you give them until they get a job.

I don't believe you have children of your own; is this an armchair opinion or your own lived experience?

Anyway while on paper this is true, in practice kids will ask for this and may get it as a treat, or they may get it from somewhere else. And as a one-off, that's fine, but they do get influenced by ads to want more of it at any time. Same with fast food chains, somehow the ones that aren't available where I live got an almost mythical status with the teenager here. A Taco Bell did open here but honestly it was mediocre and overpriced.

Teens and so would be given money to buy food themselves, e.g. before/after going to football training, swimming, dancing etc.

Indeed, it's unrealistic to expect all kids would be served food and observed while eating.

>Children pretty much have to eat what you give them until they get a job.

Damn, someone better ring up the cereal companies and tell them to stop advertising, I bet they'll feel foolish realizing they've wasted all that money!

> Children pretty much have to eat what you give them until they get a job.

So.. then.. why are we advertising to them _at all_?

this is perverse, you understand they make a point about how easy it would be to not buy the cereal and they're right, a child does just HAVE to eat what you give them.

That children are a part of the decision making process is the failure.

The advertising works on the child, and ultimately the child (and the advert...directly to some extent but largely through the child) induces the parent to obtain the product.

> Children pretty much have to eat what you give them until they get a job.

If true why do cereal companies spend billions on advertising directly to children? For the fun of it?

I think its so children are open to eating it after the parents have bought it. If the food doesn't look appealing the parent will have to work harder but its the parents making the food choices not the child. Most of the time children don't even go to the grocery store with their parents.

Tell me you have never had kids without telling me you’ve never had kids.

I have children

So parents buy unhealthy food for their children without any prompting, and the kids need to have their minds opened to it by advertising, otherwise they wouldn't it?

I'm sure the cartoons and colors help the kids get motivated to eat the cereal

I'm pretty sure the massive amounts of sugar is all the motivation they need.

How do they know it has sugar just by looking at the food or the packaging?

the rainbow colored marshmallows tip them off.

Because most children aren't stupid and when something is called a "Fruit Loop" or the box displays pieces of cereal that resemble halloween candy they can make the connection to sugar.

Exactly. That's why I said "I'm sure the cartoons and colors help the kids get motivated to eat the cereal"

Through my own experiences I feel that if the parents allow them to have cereal as a starter, then the choice between Frosted Flakes and Cinnamon Toast Crunch will be up to the kid.

Personally I came from a family that never had cereal for breakfast, so that advertising never affected me -- it's not like I'd ever have it.

So targeting ads as the primary villain seems a bit like shifting responsibility away

Can we have one or several months without ads of any kind?

Perhaps then we can appreciate a world without ads more.

It might also reduce the environmental burden of overconsumption.

Move to the UK and only watch the BBC, and yes

That's not ad-free. You have to put up with ads for a load of BBC programmes which will almost inevitably contain a slew of progressive messaging.

The BBC is ad free in the UK.

Not whole UK, as they've been banning VPNs from iPlayer.

The BBC is free from adverts from people other than the BBC.

Notice I said: "ads for a load of BBC programmes"

Plenty of guests on shows promoting a new film or book. We still have billboards advertising stuff.

It is amazing when you visit a city that has banned billboards especially when coming from one that does not.

It's the same (opposite) feeling you get when watching an ad free streaming service and the switch to live TV or Prime. Which is just like switching to a browser with out uBO.

If society went 30 days with a universal uBO experience, I think all wars would end, cats & dogs sleeping together, shields would become plow. You know, basically peace on earth.

Every once in a while I end up with a browser without adblocker. It baffles me how anyone would want to use the WWW like that. I cannot fathom, they're missing out, but at the end: those people plus the ones paying for services (which is sometimes me) are financing the platforms.

Well, allegedly funding their platforms. Not all ads convert.

IMHO the only way they'll pay attention if enough of us turn it all off.

Well I didn't understand how -besides the cereals maybe- are unhealthy

> Breakfast cereals including ready-to-eat cereals, granola, muesli, porridge oats and other oat-based cereals.

until I re-read and saw this:

> But the new restrictions will not apply to healthier options such as natural porridge oats and unsweetened yoghurt.

So I think it's not clear in the first sentence but "ready-to-eat" is meant to apply to all the items in the list and not just the cereals.

It's very strange they say porridge oats are banned, then go on saying "natural porridge oats" are not.

In my mind porridge oats are natural and you don't have to say that. If you have something else you need to say so.

I’m assuming they mean stuff like Quaker oatmeal packets which are half sugar.

My kids love natural porridge, however there is a constant battle about how much honey they are allowed to drown them in. :)

I am amazed honey is not on this list of "junk" foods.

It's on mine. Refined sugar with water, pure and simple. It doesn't get a pass.

Are any other toppings on the list? If it's just standalone foods I'm not surprised.

The highly processed stuff found in supermarkets definately should be. If you haven't ever tried real honey, go find some and thank me later.

Unfortunately you're probably right. When "oats" may refer to those sugar packs it kinda shows how bad our food habits and norms have fallen.

They are not banned. They are on "the list" (as the article says) meaning they must be scored using the "NPM model". Only scores exceeding 4 are "banned", which will include sweetened oats.

>must be scored using the "NPM model". Only scores exceeding 4 are "banned", which will include sweetened oats

Thanks. Do you have a link to "the list" and this NPM model scoring system?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cdac7e5274...

Its the cereal industry being bastards again.

Breakfast cereals contain a colossal amount of sugar, and are a great way to keep your diabetes on its toes. They haven't been healthy for years, moreover the toys they put in them have been shit as well.

>moreover the toys they put in them have been shit as well

That's what pisses me the fuck off. Even Kinder toys have been shit for decades.

If they didn't fortify breakfast cereals then they'd be about as nutritious as the box they came in.

There's a lot of misinformation going around about how the legislation works.

All porridge oats are "in scope" of the regulation, which means they need to be scored using the "Nutrient Profile Model" score before being advertised.

The result is that porridge oats are not banned, but golden syrup instant porridge oats will be.

Here's the scoring model: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nutrient-prof...

Do you think this is worth posting as a top-level comment? There's already lots of speculation in this thread (confusion even), and I appreciate you bringing an authoritative reference to the discussion.

I'm a bit confused as I thought muesli was healthy.

It's healthy from the point of having fiber if you have no fruit and vegetables in your diet but at the same time it's 30% or more sugar.

The significant background that the UK just delivered a House of Lords enquiry in to the food system[0] which recommended a "complete ban" on junk food advertising and that the government ban junk food vendors from regulatory feedback. You can bet the consumer packaged goods (CPG) AKA 'junk food industry' - the likes of Mondelez, etc. - are actively resisting these changes with all manner of false reports, shoddy advertising doublespeak and back-channel arrangements. Given this background, the ban is relatively light touch. Expect further developments.

[0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ldselect/ldmfdo...

Help me understand. The UK government basically said that parents are not responsible enough to make dietary decisions for their children so the government needs to step in and do it for them?

Does that not seem like an overreach? Its not like 4 year olds are driving to McDonald's by themselves and ordering burgers. The parents are the ones being targeted here.

The UK is so far gone with government overreach at this point. They don’t seem to mind.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. They banned certain advertisments at a particular time of day. They didn't ban parents from giving their children whatever thet want to give them.

They're not prohibiting anyone from feeding these things to their children. A lot of people will continue to do so.

The government would have to spend a lot of money on counter-campaigns to keep the public well informed and it probably wouldn't have the desired effect on children.

Finally, and this is a very important point for me, children cannot enter into business deals/contracts; commercials are business proposals; hence there should be no ads targeting children.

It's more "we don't want corporations selling unhealthy junk to have direct access to influence super-impressional kids" - cause guess what, in that case? You can be a perfectly responsible parent dietary-decision-wise, but have your kids whine and complain constantly because the kids aren't informed about the problems of it and just want the tasty shit they saw all the ads for.

Would you allow salespeople into your home to pitch your kids on stuff all day if they were in-person instead of on a screen?

Why not complain about the overreach of irresponsible companies trying to convince kids who have no way of knowing better to start damaging their long-term health?

As a parent I don't let my children watch things I disagree with. They can probably count the number of food ads they've seen in 1 hand because I don't let them watch TV. They can watch shows and movies but they're either streamed or checked out of the library.

But that's the way I choose to parent my child. If another parent wants their children to watch TV and be exposed to those ads then they should have every right. I'm not going to make a moral decision for them and I don't think the government should either.

What about the (large, I would argue) slice of parents who want to let their kids watch TV but don't want them bombarded with ads for sugar-saturated foods?

(I mean, we're on HN, so the obvious answer is watching things on a laptop / projector with Firefox + uBlock Origin, but y'know - everyone else).

Those parents need to find solutions that don't involve forcing their morality on others. Thats how we get xenophobic and homophobic people voting to control women's bodies because they think others should do whatever they believe is moral and right.

> Those parents need to find solutions that don't involve forcing their morality on others

I believe forbidding these ads is morally good, but it's not just morality. It's knowledge backed by studies:

- children are easily influenced

- burgers cause public health issues that harm the individuals, and cost greatly to the society in healthcare

It's not a stance like "I believe women should not abort because God" (to take your example). It's a law aiming to reduce costs and and improve public health.

This laws doesn't prevent parents from speaking about burgers to their children, and doesn't prevent TV from speaking about them neither. It's not a freedom of speech issue.

There's an imbalance between the power of the big corporations and the power of the individuals and this law pushes the needle a bit towards the individuals. You the individual freedom defender should be happy with this :-)

Although I never made an argument regarding free speech we can say that this does prevent free speech because it prevents companies from speaking about their products through advertisements. Remember that business owners are people too. Often times they're citizens of the countries in which they're doing business.

I think most people tend to forget that and view companies as soulless abstract entities. In the US 99.9% (99.8% in the UK) of businesses are small businesses run by very few individuals who are just trying to make ends meet. If you remove the ability to advertise these products it doesn't hurt the big companies. They're established and have recognizable brands. But small businesses can't afford to lose their main way of finding customers. Eventually, they go out of business. This only helps the large corporations become even larger.

> There's an imbalance between the power of the big corporations and the power of the individuals...

Where is the imbalance of power in the scenario of burgers being advertised? All advertisement is designed to persuade the viewer to purchase the product or service. Marketing is a normal part of running a business. Children may be influenced by the commercials but so are adults. Should we ban all advertising now?

> - burgers cause public health issues that harm the individuals, and cost greatly to the society in healthcare

While burgers may not be the healthiest food, if you're a low income individual who can't access more expensive, healthier foods, burgers are nutrient and calorically rich and they're cheap.

A burger to someone living below the poverty line without access to food is a life saver. Its all about context and perspective.

Case in point for why socialized medicine leads to government overreach in many other facets of our lives.

Milton Friedman had a great point during this talk [1], same argument from 50 years ago.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWIrbS0dXRM

I'm the same. My children are practically never exposed to these ads. But, all their peers are.

My kids have never had any fast food, and have never seen an ad, but they talk about KFC and McDonald's constantly. It all comes from their friends at school.

Children are totally targeted. They will ask their parents and put pressure to buy them stuff. Maybe even the parents who don't cave in can be relieved of this.

In the longer term, stuff that enters your brain as a child shapes you and lasts long. See how well how many people in their 30s remember ads of their childhood.

Why would someone defend such ads anyway? I don't believe they achieve anything good for anyone except the advertiser.

Its because I don't want the government, people who I've never met in person and honestly are not the most moral of individuals, making moral decisions for my children on my behalf.

Even if the majority of citizens agreed that forcing their morality on the minority is the right thing to do I still disagree because individual freedom is more important than majority opinion.

What's the point of laws if not forcing morality?

Protecting individual rights and freedoms

Not at the cost of harming people, usually. Its role is also to protect individuals themselves.

Infinite individual freedom doesn't exist, it stops where others' individual freedom starts.

Absolutely. Individuals should have rights and freedoms as long as they don't harm another's.

> Not at the cost of harming people,

What defines harm? Or more specifically, who?

I agree.

> I still disagree because individual freedom is more important than majority opinion.

this read suspiciously like a stereotypical US opinion regarding individual rights vs rights of the majority.

so i went and looked through your comment history and i now i suspect even more strongly that you are US based.

> Its because I don't want the government, people who I've never met in person and honestly are not the most moral of individuals, making moral decisions for my children on my behalf.

it’s not your government doing this. you can relax.

also, we in the UK value the balance between individual rights and collective societal rights more strongly than you do. it’s our thing. if you don’t like it, it doesnt matter, you don’t live here.

Just because someone doesn't live in a particular region doesn't mean they can't have opinions on broader implications of these reforms.

sure, except there are no broader implications for you right now.

worry about that when it comes around pal. you’re just wasting energy right now spreading FUD.

what im basically saying here is, yes, you’re entitled to have an opinion.

but i’m also entitled to have an opinion that your opinion is meaningless and irrelevant to the subject at hand.

which is what i am expressing.

It's my government doing it and I can confirm they're right it is overreach.

I'm allowed to say that right, you won't attack me for having an opinion?

> this read suspiciously like a stereotypical US opinion regarding individual rights vs rights of the majority.

Good. Majorities shouldn't be able to steamroller minorities.

> "we in the UK value the balance between individual rights and collective societal rights more strongly than you do"

isn't this also the place where you can go to jail for what you say online? orwell's probably rolling in his grave somewhere in London

> Its because I don't want the government, people who I've never met in person and honestly are not the most moral of individuals, making moral decisions for my children on my behalf.

But without the law, they are doing the moral decision of allowing the hurtful ads. There's no neutral state. The government has to pick a side anyway. So let's pick the side favorable to the citizens?

> individual freedom is more important than majority opinion

Isn't this a contradiction? If the majority wants something, you are hurting the individual freedom of the greatest number of people.

> But without the law, they are doing the moral decision of allowing the hurtful ads. There's no neutral state. The government has to pick a side anyway. So let's pick the side favorable to the citizens?

The idea of the government 'picking a side' is problematic because it assumes a one-size-fits-all solution that may not align with everyone's values. Allowing ads isn't endorsing them; it's respecting freedom of speech and trusting individuals to make their own choices. Once the government starts deciding which speech is acceptable, it opens the door for abuse and subjective enforcement, which can harm citizens more than it helps.

The free market should decide whether they want to be exposed to ads or not by voting with their dollars. If an ad campaign doesn't produce the results a company wants they pull the ads and try something else.

> Isn't this a contradiction? If the majority wants something, you are hurting the individual freedom of the greatest number of people.

Individual freedom means the freedom to do, say, or think whatever you please as long as you don't harm another or their property. The will of the majority to force the minority to behave a certain way is not freedom. The majority is free to act however they want as long as it doesn't harm others but they shouldn't be allowed to force others to behave a certain way.

Majority opinion can lead to tyranny if it infringes on the rights of individuals. History offers countless examples of majorities oppressing minorities. The role of a just society is to protect each person's right to life, liberty, and property, even when the majority disagrees.

The focus should be on safeguarding universal rights rather than catering to the fluctuating preferences of a majority.

Don't forget that this emboldens the government to define what is and isn't healthy. Something that's worked out super well in the US.

Shame I had to scroll this far to get to this comment. I have absolutely no idea why, in 2024, people still think we should let the government decide what is good/what we can see/what others can say.

Do you have children? They're targeted with ads everywhere. You can be a responsible parent but these things cause unnecessary stress. Quite frankly if the government wants to ban all advertising I would be thrilled.

I do have children and I don't let them be exposed to things I disagree with. But thats my moral decision. Why should my morality be forced on others? Making the decision to not expose your children to certain ads is a moral decision. Let the parents choose if its important for them. They can choose exactly what kind of content their children watch with streaming and DVDs. Long gone are the days where kids just sat in front a television and had to watch live cable TV where the parents didn't know what was coming up next.

You, as an individual, can still play the adverts to your children. The regulation is targeting the advertisers.

> Long gone are the days where kids just sat in front a television and had to watch live cable TV where the parents didn't know what was coming up next.

I've seen streaming services auto-play whatever they want to push at viewers after whatever show/movie was playing ended. I imagine there are a lot of kids that end up watching things they (and their parents) didn't choose for themselves.

When it comes to ads, parents and children don't get to choose what ads they see either.

They should keep reaching and ban the rest of the ads.

That's a great way to frame the whole thing if you're a corporation trying to sell junk food I guess.

In reality, this law is only about advertising, specifically about making it slightly harder to target children with advertising for junk food in a country that already has a serious problem with obesity.

>The UK government basically said that parents are not responsible enough to make dietary decisions for their children so the government needs to step in and do it for them?

Stand outside any school gate in the UK and you will see that the majority of parents "aren't responsible enough to make dietary decisions for their children".

I'm fairly relaxed about it simply because this is a response to the behaviour of these corporations.

... No, that's not what it says at all.

The level of reading comprehension on this website really is astonishingly low. It's about restrictions on advertising, not bans on products.

I hope other countries take action soon. It's deeply irresponsible how we allow advertisements and Big Sugar/Fast Food companies to exploit colorful cartoon characters and misleading health claims to hook people—especially children—on excessive sugar and fat consumption. This not only fosters unhealthy eating habits but also conditions them to crave specific branded flavors from an early age.

Are adults not allowed to like colourful cartoon characters? Fruit flavours?

Parent commenter didn’t write anything to the contrary; obviously the median child gets more excited by those two things than the median adult.

I really loathe these sort of “gotcha” comments.

> Parent commenter didn’t write anything to the contrary;

Did I imply that? Are "colorful cartoon characters" the part that's "deeply irresponsible" or just the misleading health claims? If you prevent the latter then you don't have anything to attach the former to.

> I really loathe these sort of “gotcha” comments.

I don't get what part of my comment was the 'gotcha'

> I don't get what part of my comment was the 'gotcha

Watching day-time cartoons will do that.

You're telling me this ad appeals to you in your demographic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJmM2CSn2ao

Isn’t the issue there the claims of “fruit flavours” easily misinterpreted as having actual fruit and including vitamin c prominently when it’s just fortified.

You've moved the goalpost! No, the issue is that fruit flavors and cartoon characters are abused to appeal to children. That is what the original comment said and which you only half replied to! The video provided to you was an example of such - cartoons and 'fruit flavors' to hook kids on wanting sugary cereals for breakfast.

Moved goalpoast?

> No, the issue is that fruit flavors and cartoon characters are abused to appeal to children. That is what the original comment said

That's not what they said. They said:

> It's deeply irresponsible how we allow advertisements and Big Sugar/Fast Food companies to exploit colorful cartoon characters and misleading health claims to hook people

I don't think the cartoon characters is the part of the problem to address. And I think that aspect becomes irrelevant when addressing the actual problem. (And 'Fruit flavours' was my addition and question not theirs)

What part of my comment "only half replied"? I asked two questions in relation to the comment. I mentioned "colourful cartoon characters" and "fruit flavours" because those are examples of things that "appeal to kids" even though they have wider audiences. Canada (and other countries?) want to ban flavours from e-cigarettes because of the appeal to youth (and limiting it to just mint, menthol and tobacco). Why should an adult be limited to mint as a flavour for an age-controlled product? Why shouldn't an advertiser be allowed to use colorful cartoon characters?

Moved goalpost? Aren't we saying the same thing here? The video, and similar breakfast cereals, are perfect examples of the actual problem. It uses the combination of cartoons and false health claims. The false health claims are the parts that are problematic - that's the part to eliminate. The informational part of that video (and the box information design!) is meant to appeal to (read: mislead) adults, not kids.

Allowing false health claims for unhealthy products is an issue. Miseducating parents and adults about what's healthy is an issue. Suppressing how terrible excess sugar is for children and adults is an issue. Allowing lines like "how about fruit flavours"? (in video) and showing pictures of fruit is an issue. Allowing producers to hide how unhealthy something is by saying it's "healthy when part of a balanced breakfast" is an issue. Even now, nutrition information or prominent labels for cereals can include the values (eg protein) when one consumes it with milk!

Change that and what does that video or other ads for cereals become?

The purpose of the commercial is to create demand where there otherwise would not have been. Do you think that demand comes from the parents or the children? Which parts of the commercial do you think are most important for fomenting this demand?

Does the commercial exist if they're allowed to make those misleading claims?

I just hope that the US can ban ads for pharmaceuticals.

Never happen. There's a place called Canada though...

Same was said of tobacco... and I don't see any ads on TV for tobacco.

Why?

Good thing they made this move once daytime tv was basically irrelevant to anyone under 40 or it might've had some impact.

Direct quote from the article which I'm sure you read: "This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online."

Because when kids go on the internet they always end up in regulated age appropriate areas.

this is silly, though. If the kids are in "adult" areas then they're still not going to see ads for lucky charms because lucky charms isn't marketed for adults.

and the several posts "an it harm none do what thou wilt" on this topic are silly too. My breath takes oxygen out of the atmosphere. Me drinking a glass of water takes that water out of the ground (or stream, or lake), making you unable to drink it. Every footstep changes the terrain.

It sounds good in text form "as long as they're not harming anyone but themselves" but what about smoking? assume someone lives alone so they're not second-handing anyone else, they're still a burden on the system. there's still poison being sprayed on tobacco crops, diesel being burned to harvest and transport, plastics being used to manufacture the cigarettes, and so on. There's external costs to literally everything except living in a log cabin made from local logs in the middle of a forest and only foraging and hunting for food. And even then i am sure i could argue that has unbalanced negative externalities.

If you're going to attempt to make a point, make sure it makes sense from more than one angle, first.

I don’t think this goes far enough. Kids see adverts for this stuff in so many other places, TV is just one small step. Take a kid into a supermarket and there’s junk food advertised everywhere.

It's a first step. The larger point here is awareness.

When you think about it none of the ads are for healthy food. When did you ever see an advert for Broccoli on the television?

Probably best to ban all food advertising.

Baffling to me how advertising to those without a stable source of above living-cost income is allowed in the first place. Let alone advertising to children.

How do you select for "those without a stable source of above living-cost income?

No idea. That's for the advertising firms to figure out.

Ration TVs, obviously :)

Sell your cereal to free school breakfast programs so those kids are literally spoon fed your stuff by the government. When they complain to their parents they want it at home, make sure you can trade food stamps for your cereal.

They still get stuff though. Daytime advertising for toys is basically aimed at kids' birthday / christmas wishlists, pocket money, etc. If you add it up, that's hundreds of whatever your currency is per year across birthdays, gift giving holidays, and family / extended family.

Is there a name for an ideology that says all social and economic problems can be solved through mass psychology? You could call it psychohistory perhaps, but there's got to be a newer term. Seems like it's the dominant ideology of a variety of technocrats.

Yes there are psychological aspects to governance but more and more it's becoming the only solution to all problems. Obesity is skyrocketing? It's the psychology. People don't like unlimited immigration? Get out the mass psychology. People perceive that inflation is out of control. Get out the mass psychology. Market is down. Employ mass psychology. People don't give a crap about a war that they have no stake in. Mass psychology. I guess propaganda works and it's very cheap, lol.

I think it’s traditionally called advertising.

Public Relations - Edward Bernays [0]

Propaganda - Edward Bernays in 1928 [1]

Public opinion - Walter Lippmann 1947 [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Relations_(book)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book)

something involving ppl following whatever the political or media firestorm of the moment is, and most ppl more likely to just follow whatever the party line is?

The recent fashionable term is "nudge theory"

See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_Insights_Team as an implementation

On this subject I highly recommend the documentary "the Century of the Self" (produced by Adam Curtis for the BBC). It explores how Sigmund Freud's theories about the unconscious mind were used by his nephew Edward Bernays to create modern public relations and consumer culture. The documentary shows how corporations and governments learned to manipulate mass desires using psychological techniques, transforming democracy from meeting people's needs to managing their wants through consumption and marketing.

The entire doc is on Youtube: https://youtu.be/GFwDc17WZ-A

Psychohistory is already a study of the past and why it happened the way it did, so maybe it could help answer your question, but it isn’t the ideology you’re seeking.

There is a reason that advertising and media influence is everywhere, it is a cheap and has a decent return on investment, whether that is actual revenue or just a shift in people’s perspective.

You may be thinking of Nudge Theory

... I mean, in this case, it's a problem being _caused_ by mass psychology (that's what advertising is).

One thing I noticed is during UK Daytime TV is there are a comical amount of funeral and life insurance ads, it's incredibly depressing.

That's the demographics of who watches daytime TV.

Also note that advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals is already banned, which would likely be another large advertiser were that not the case.

in the US the marketing of pharma isn't targeting the average consumer, it's targeting doctors. or so i've heard. It does boggle, though, because that's a lot (a lot) of money in any given market to reach less than 0.1% of the market, assuming they're even watching the channel at that time.

In the same vein, and as further evidence, whenever i'm in a car that isn't mine and an ad plays, especially on siriusXM, there's a good chance it's for ziprecruiter or linkedin job listings or something. How many hiring managers (or small business owners?) are listening to that ad? 25? 100? 1?

Most of my online ads are for $100,000+ network gear and the like because i'm adjacent to that industry. I just loaded edge and went to youtube to see what's up and i got an ad for an electric car (i won't own one manufactured in this century), an ad for an adblocker (pie), and i guess google caught on because i can't get any other ads to show up (i clicked a couple dozen other videos and couldn't get another pre-roll to show up).

advertising has never been relevant to me, i've only ever gotten out a credit card because of one online ad, ever, and i ended up never receiving what i paid for, so there you go, lesson learned. I haven't owned a TV since 2003, no subscription services (including CATV or Sat, netflix, etc). So when i see ads or hear them, they stand out, pretty strong.

Plus adverts for stair lifts and laxatives showing the healthiest looking old people you have ever seen.

Wow, what's wrong with burgers?

I mean, certainly you can get bad meat, and maybe it's easier to conceal in a burger than in a steak, but ... how about literally all other processed meat that is invariably processed more than burgers? Salami, sausages, hot dogs, ...

I personally love burger, and consider it one of the finest foods.

Fortunately, there's a very easy way to know the quality of a burger - if they ask you, how well you want it done, it's high quality! Shitty burger places like McDonalds and Burger King don't want to risk selling you a medium-done burger... Funny enough, UK is one of the better places for high-quality burger, much better than e.g. Switzerland or Slovenia! My favourite in London is (was? 2019) Honest Burger...

> Also on the banned list are products such as chickpea or lentil-based crisps, seaweed-based snacks and Bombay mix as well as energy drinks, hamburgers and chicken nuggets.

The foods mentioned in the article are not an exhaustive list of all the foods for which the government has banned advertising. It's possible they've also banned ads for salami, sausages and hot dogs, but the article didn't mention it.

Probably because, compared to burgers, there aren't that many ads for salami, sausages and hot-dogs during daytime TV, so it's not seen as much of a problem, or as worth mentioning.

But because you mention it - how many daytime ads do you see for high quality burgers, like Honest Burger, as compared to ads for McDonalds and Burger King?

McDonald's burgers are 100% beef. What's the problem? If the bun and other parts of the burger are ultra processed, whatever that means, well, that's the same for their chicken sandwiches, right? If the problem is the salt or seasonings, why not ban ads for salty burgers over a threshold or burgers with the specific problematic seasonings?

Salt is not particularly a problem unless someone has a genetic predisposition to hypertension or doesn't drink enough water.

There is nothing wrong with most foods as part of a mixed diet. The problem is, a burger/box of chicken is ~£2-4 and fucking fast. A meal with vegetables either takes preparation, or is >£6

The issue here is that the UK is obese as fuck. Partly because of education, partly because of price, party because of supermarkets.

If we want to avoid spending billions upon billions tackling diabetes and other related conditions, the UK needs to tackle its diet. This is

In Canada, it's outright illegal to sell a burger medium done. If you get caught, your restaurant will be closed for a couple weeks minimum, along with a hefty fine. It must be fully cooked, or not served.

seriously? No medium well, just straight up well done? So, hockey pucks? Ahh, now it makes sense. It's a law endowed by Canada's love of hockey

It's perfectly possible to cook a burger such that it's not dry but also not raw.

Same in UK. Family members keep asking me when we travel there "will my burger be done right". Uhhh..there's only one kind of doneness for a burger in these parts.

It's ground beef. The rule is you must cook it to the proper internal temperature. This is reasonable food safety. This simply precludes medium as an option.

If they grind their own meat or use something like ground chuck or ground round you can get it medium.

Why is ground chuck safer than other ground beef?

Bacteria contaminates the exposed surface of foods. Pre-ground meat has a _lot_ of surface area exposed so the potential for contamination is high. If you get your meat as a chunk of chuck roast or larger primal cut, follow good food safety practices in how you maintain your workspace, and then grind the chuck and turn it into patties to be grilled the probability for serving a contaminated product is low.

The problem is that this is more expensive and time consuming so almost no one actually does this in a commercial setting. If you tell me you do this when I come over to your home cook-out I will possibly trust you to serve me a burger with some pink in it, but if your restaurant tries to sell a $6 burger that you let someone order medium-rare bad things are going to eventually happen...

For added safety, you can even sear the outside of the cut, then trim the seared part before grinding the rest.

There are small burger restaurant chains in Canada that grind their meat on the premises. Burger's Priest (they used to tout this, but since the franchising push, this link is the only mention about grinding their own meat - https://www.recipeunlimited.com/en/franchising/burger-priest...) and Holy Chuck Burgers - https://holychuckburgers.com/.

Some meat sellers mechanically tenderize (blading) their cuts of beef. This may cause E.coli on the surface of the beef to enter the interior of the beef. Costco was linked to E.coli cases in 2012 due to this practice. See https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/06/has-you...

That doesn’t make sense. It’s beef.

If you can serve a steak medium, then you can also grind the steak, cook it medium and serve it.

Then you get bacteria in the ground part, potentially, whereas a steak will be cooked on all the exposed surfaces.

Um, it’s beef. It can be eaten raw. Ever heard of carpaccio?!?

Only two reasons to ever cook beef: (1) taste (2) quality

The exterior of a cut can be seared and then trimmed off to get a safe chunk of raw beef.

A whole steak doesn't contain pathogens deep within, only on the surface, which is why ground beef is different situation entirely.

The burgers they show on TV are pure junk food, let's be real.

Hamburgers on whole wheat are a staple in my life. The war on saturated fat and red meat is ridiculous

wish we wouldn't keep demonizing fat though, if you decrease one form of energy intake (sugar) you have to increase another form of energy intake, no problem with this being fat, as long as it's naturally occurring in the environment and thus among our adaptations.

> if you decrease one form of energy intake (sugar) you have to increase another form of energy intake

We have an obesity problem in the UK. We need to reduce overall calorific intake.

Given so many kids watch the state-funded CBeebies, which doesn't need ads, or YouTube or Netflix, which presumably this won't cover, this is probably just another chance for TV companies to stop broadcasting kids' content at all.

A good move but it's still mad to me that we're banning junk food ads while fossil fuel ads are still allowed which are creating damage many orders of magnitudes greater than a muffin ever could.

Fossil fuels are being tackled by phasing out new ICE car sales by 2035. 22% of new cars this year have to be zero emissions (EVs).

What is a fossil fuel ad? I don't think I've ever seen an ad for e.g. a gas station. Car ads maybe?

Yep, the government is challenging the normalization of sugar-laden diets... But I can't help wondering if it’s addressing the symptom rather than the root cause

Good that they are trying but “ …aired after the 9:00 pm” running ads after 9 pm is even worst. If you need to consume sugar you might as well do it in day time.

It's about kids, ads targeted at kids (according to the article)

A lot of the regulations around what is and isn’t allowed on TV in the UK change at 2100, we call it the “watershed” which is regulated by OfCom (the communications ombudsman).

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-st...

Glad they got that through - the argument's been going on for ages. Here's a 2006 "Total ban for junk food ads around kids' shows" article https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/nov/17/health.food

But I don't think they did sugary breakfast cereals because Kelloggs et al made a fuss.

I hear crumpets are also frowned on - my favourite breakfast food!

future headline: A UK man was found dead in his flat after his TV broke. apparently he had starved to death after not being reminded of the existence of food by the ads.

If only I ever watched ads on live TV I would have noticed…

what about sausage rolls and meal deals?

cool but nobody watches TV this days.

I mean, that's objectively disproved by the advertising industry who is profiting from these ads.

Maybe you and I aren't, but lots of people are.

Can we do gambling ads next? We banned tobacco ads and then seemingly forgot the lesson that it's actually bad to let advertisers shove addictive and self-destructive products in the publics face, including to former addicts at risk of relapse.

>Can we do gambling ads next?

As long as we ban ads for stock trading platforms (i.e. gambling for the professional classes) at the same time.

I don't disagree, but stock trading ads are in some ways already more strictly regulated than gambling ads here. Gambling ads are required to have a vague "please gamble responsibly" statement, but ads for CFD trading platforms are required to have a prominent warning stating the exact percentage of their accounts which lose money (often >75%). The gambling ads don't have to tell you the real odds of coming out ahead.

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM_zuudkSnY

I think a fair and reasonable advertisement policy is to ban all advertisements during "children's programming hours", or 0800 to 1600 when school is not in session. During "Prime Time" hours of 0500-0800 and 1600-2300, adverts should be limited to luxury goods (e.g., fashion), government PSAs, and non-addictive goods or services (NO drugs, NO tobacco, NO gambling, and NO stock trading, to name but a few). Between 2300 and 0400, allow "free reign" on subscription channels but still bar "vice" or addiction ads.

We've got a century of data showing laissez-faire approaches to advertising results in maximum harm to a society, and ample recent data from the internet age showing how dark patterns in psychology are exploited by advertisers to drive outcomes.

We have to do better, and the UK's step is at least an attempt to stem the harm. I can't fault entities from at least trying to do better.

Daytime tv is all about brainwashing wealthy retired people.

Still not as bad as those weird country which advertise prescription medicine

I wonder what proportion of children are still watching mainstream TV? My son (4) mainly watches Disney+ and Netflix.

Choosing streaming services will be correlated to income. Netflix (medium $) and Disney+ (high $$). The less wealthy are watching YouTube with ads included.

Children are the people least able to destroy their own lives through spending, so that feels pretty backwards. I think it's generally accepted that people who grow up around e.g. alcohol tend to have a healthier relationship with it than people who are suddenly exposed to it as an adult.

But they are among the most impressionable and it is effective to target the parents via kids nagging them.

Add to your list to ban medical advertisement to the vice and addiction bar.

Do you feel like your knee itches sometime? You may have BSitis, ask your doctor if our product is right for you...

Replace all these with a generic, if you feel sick, go see a doctor, that's what they are for if needed.

Wait until you hear about how CFD trading is legal in large parts of the world.

Is the payout on a CFD the same as a future or forward?

Irrelevant. Stocks are a share of a company. The have book value and intrinsic value. Freedom to buy and sell is essential.

Of course, crypto speculation is something different altogether. Maybe you were thinking about all the poor schleps buying Bitcoin for $100k?

Even then, your chances of winning are around 50/50 and no one is forcing you to cash out.

There is an important difference. With stocks, the punter wins on average. With gambling, the punter loses on average.

You can still lose all your money on stocks, with a combination of bad choices and bad luck. But it is much easier to lose it on the horses.

The punter does not win on average with stocks due to fees and spread.

IIRC average stock market returns have historically been around 7% per year. Index funds charge around 1% per year.

My stock ISAs have gone up pretty much every year (after inflation and fees).

Putting your money into an index fund is the exact opposite of what is being advertised, e.g. trading platforms optimized for day trading, complete with blinkenlighten and "learn to trade" mini courses teaching technical indicators and other voodoo nonsense.

There is a reason they spend loads of money on ads trying to get you into day trading. ;0)

> Index funds charge around 1% per year.

You're getting ripped off, you should be paying a small fraction of that.

Vanguard UK charge 0.06% to 0.6% per year on their index funds: https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/all-product...

Plus a 0.15% account fee: https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/fees-explai...

Most others charge more.

That 0.6% one is actively managed. The true index funds on that list are charging 0.2% or less (0.12% for most of the ones you'd want). So 0.27%-0.35% all-in. I stand by 1% being be a rip-off.

1% is quite extreme, the S&P 500 fund I use (FXAIX) charges .015% per year which is almost 70 times less expensive than 1%.

Indeed, I am mostly in ASX:IVV (another S&P 500 ETF) and it charges 0.04% per year.

> Index funds

That's not what the ads for the stock trading platforms want you to do

I was very careful with my words. I said:

> The punter does not win on average with stocks due to fees and spread.

Literally 100% of my investing is the stock market. I have so much faith in the stock market that I rent because I don't want to waste the opportunity cost on equity in property.

A punter is informal slang for a person who gambles. I buy and hold a diversified portfolio of index funds over decades. I am very much not a punter.

It seems there is more than one definition of 'punter'. I meant it as 'customer/client'. But other sources define it as 'a person who gambles, places a bet, or makes a risky investment'.

I'm only familiar with the latter definition. My mistake I guess.

>My mistake I guess.

Not really. There just seems to be more than one meaning, and we were each aware of different ones. The meaning might vary by country (I am in the UK).

It was a mistake because I got downvoted by issuing a correct statement (if punter is interpreted as a gambler).

I am from the UK but moved to Australia about 35 years ago

>It was a mistake because I got downvoted by issuing a correct statement (if punter is interpreted as a gambler).

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

https://xkcd.com/386/

;o)

The warnings for gambling ads are particularly infuriating.

Like what would anyone think of a smoking warning of “when the fun stops, stop”

It's interesting that one of the tax free investment/savings choices in the UK is basically a lottery.

You’re not risking any capital though, if you mean Premium Bonds.

Even better, pay that money into a pension and buy a lottery ticket.

Pensions sort of already are a lottery. Can’t collect if you’re dead. Live to 95 and they help a lot. Though inflation will still getcha in the end.

Yes if you choose annuity but you can also buy those with regular cash so it's as relevant here as price of tea.

Pensions are more tax efficient and offer a better option of investments (companies) than what is effectively fiat interest going into a lottery pool.

If you have cash in premium bonds you might die young then pay inheritance tax.

Better give your kids cash earlier to live off or invest to avoid this, and so they can over-stuff their pensions ;). Not many people think that far ahead (60 year horizon)

Some young adults in my life have grandparents who just hit this point, and are trying to set up gifting money to the grandkids in the form of brokerage accounts.

> Pensions sort of already are a lottery

Annuities maybe, but those aren’t the only kind of pensions

That seems the definition of pension. You may be thinking of something else.

  pension

  a regular income paid by a government or a financial organization to someone who no longer works, usually because of their age or health

The first line of the Wikipedia article on pensions is more accurate than wherever you’ve pulled that from:

> A pension (/ˈpɛnʃən/; from Latin pensiō 'payment') is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work.

A pension is a financial instrument. There’s no need to purchase an annuity, which means a pension organised correctly can be passed on to your children or spouse, and there’s no lottery or gamble angle.

> wherever you’ve pulled that from

A dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dictiona...

The wikipedia definition is strange. A pension is not a fund. A pension fund is a fund! (There is also a wikipedia page for that!)

Apart from that how is “regular income paid by to someone who no longer works“ different from “periodic payments made to support the person's retirement from work” anyway?

Because you missed the original distinction, which is that an annuity — a product purchased using your pension savings where all the value is lost when you die — is not the same as other pensions, where for example you have stocks and shares paying dividends, in a pension wrapper, and those pass on to your estate when you die.

The word pension is overloaded. A SIPP is a pension, the state pension is a pension, and people refer to their annuity as pensions too.

> A pension is not a fund. A pension fund is a fund!

The word fund is being used in two different ways here. A pension is a fund, but is not a Pension Fund.

The wikipedia page you mention says that "The common use of the term pension is to describe the payments a person receives upon retirement, usually under predetermined legal or contractual terms."

I'm familiar with retirement accounts and pension plans in a number of countries but not in the UK. I see that in the UK "pension" is often used a short-hand for "pension scheme" (it seems a relatively new development which I've not seen reflected in dictionaries).

For what it's worth, the wikipedia page for Personal_pension is redirected to Personal_pension_scheme: "A personal pension scheme (PPS), sometimes called a personal pension plan (PPP), is ..."

By this reasoning, isn't buying equities also gambling? Hint: It is not.

Why not?

What is about HN where numerous posters do not believe that investing in the US or EU stock markets is better than completely random outcome, like roulette red/black? Man, this place is weird sometimes. What the fuck are you investing in for retirement if not stocks? Sea shells!!?? I hereby quote Brandolini's law:

    > The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

> What is about HN where numerous posters do not believe that investing in the US or EU stock markets is better than completely random outcome, like roulette red/black?

Err, you could start by not making wild inferences and replying to assertions that weren't made.

A single investment is basically gambling. Where it moves is largely impossible to predict or (for a nobody like me, who wouldn't have the means to engage in market manipulation) control. You can reduce the randomness/risk by spreading out your investment across multiple stocks. That's just the central limit theorem. For the market as a whole, on a long enough timescale, the historical aggregate trends upwards, but is still effectively random.

> What the fuck are you investing in for retirement if not stocks?

I can be critical of something and still acknowledge the reality that I am effectively forced to engage with it. I generally invest in a few index funds to reduce the variance and mental overhead, but it's still there.

---

In one way it's much worse than "mainstream" gambling: its value depends on society holding the shared delusion that stocks (both in general and yours in particular) are actually worth something. That leads some people to become incredibly invested in maintaining that delusion, since they know what's at stake for them. This thread could be considered an example of where that mentality leads.

And as you said yourself:

> The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

Indeed, premium bonds are just a slightly more "entertaining" way of allocating interest. Just as arbitrary as the MPC, but potentially a much higher rate (probably not though).

You are losing your savings interest. You are gambling that money away.

I've always earned roughly the same from Premium Bonds as the equivalent savings, and it's tax free. Doesn't seem a terrible deal as long as you're filling your ISA up each year. Plus you have a frisson of excitement every month.

I'm pretty sure all gambling winnings are tax free in the UK?

Thank the power of the horse racing/gaming/gambling lobby.

Many years ago when I lived there, I had an IG Index account - who market themselves as a "financial spread betting" service. At the time, you could buy/sell futures and options with them but it was presented in a way that emphasized that you were "spread betting" - but the mechanics were the exact same and expiries all lined up with the obvious counterparts in the liquid futures space.

So because you were NOT investing but gambling, "winnings" were tax free.

I just googled and they're still going - presumably still offering the same betting "service".

It's funny to see the efforts that scam and pure gambling services go to to try and present themselves as staid and serious "investment" business while IG Index offered access to well-regulated financial markets but kept reminding you that you were betting.

No gambling taxes? Must be a money laundering heaven.

there are taxes, but they are largely on the earnings of the gaming companies

It makes sense though if I think about it.

In theory, all the money wagered is money that has already paid income tax at some point so why tax it again?

Because gambling is so terrible for your society!

That’s true of anything you pay money for

As an Australian this is the first I've ever heard of paying taxes on gambling winnings.

For those unaware, this comment is referring to premium bonds in the UK[1]. It is a very interesting system, I agree! But there are quite a few parts of the system that make it way more fair than a lottery.

Most obviously, it doesn't cost to enter. So the most you can "lose" is a missed interest income from putting the money in another source.

After that, it's definitely the fact that the algorithm is designed to both pay a certain percentage of people and always have specific return. [1]

You are also limited to how much you can enter to 50k.

With all that in mind, at the end of the day it feels like many small wins over time, with the super random chance of occasionally having a big-ish payout.

It's definitely designed to feel like a lottery, but in reality is way more akin to normal savings than a lottery.

[1] https://www.nsandi.com/products/premium-bonds

In New Zealand this scheme was called "Bonus Bonds" and was wound up on 26 February 2024. Interest was charged on "wins" just like any other income. Apparently the average return was a paltry 1.5%.

Everyone knew someone's uncle who swore blind that he made heaps on the bonus bonds and had all his money "invested" in there, but I received some around my 10th birthday and they never struck a single prize. In 40 years.

Tax man: Did you earn your daily bread by working your arse off? Gimme some of that money.

Also tax man: Oh did you get that money by luck? Good for you, man.

Also tax man: Did you get inherit money by having been born into a wealthy family? Gimme some of that money.

Also tax man: Were you born into the royal family? Good for you, man. Pardon me, I mean, your highness.

The business is probably owned by some rich and influential chap who eagerly shares with the right people in the parliament.

Considering Labour's connection to gambling companies [0] probably not.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/28/tory...

Indeed. It has been heavily covered in Private Eye, as well. Labour is deeply in hock to the gambling industry. So much for "gambling is the curse of the working class".

Funny how you can buy British politicians for dirt cheap. In India or the US, it would take at least $100k-200k to get a single politician's attention at the bare minimum, while in the UK you can influence party positions for 25k quid.

I don't have enough experience about India to comment on that but in the US the amount of money it takes to influence a politician is quite low.

Don't you need to donate at least $100k to influence senators or influence party positions in the US? Sure, you could "buy" a politician for cheaper, but you're not guaranteeing they will toe your line.

India is ridiculously expensive - bribes often amount to 50 lakh rupees to 1 crore + rupees, which amounts to roughly $50k-100k per politician. Not to mention bribery at the lower rungs of the ladder where everyone from the politician's toilet janitor all the way to the politician's chief of staff will demand their pound of flesh, usually in the tune of tens of lakhs of rupees (~$10k).

That's not a good thing. From what I understand, a lot of "cheaper" bribes in India are for things that the government employees must do as a part of their jobs so like a bribe for these government employees to do their job basically which still filters up to the highest levels of government.

Why would you agree to stick your neck out for something illegal on the cheap when you can wring the ordinary people to do your job?

All this is based on second hand information so please correct me where I am wrong. Also probably things are different in different parts of the country?

This is exactly how it works.

I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing - bribery is bad, full stop. I wanted to draw a comparison between how expensive it is in India vs the UK, which means that a relatively smaller pool of individuals can actually afford to bribe in India vs the UK, which makes projects more concentrated in the hands of a few (which is still a lot in a bit country like India).

On the other hand, I was a member of the Treasury group and the Leaders group of the Tory party until recently, with just a "paltry" donation of £50k, which got me the ear of a sitting PM and regular meetings with the Chancellor. Good luck trying to get that kind of access in India or the US with the PM.

The cheaper bribes were a tangent, but just to show that doing business in India is actually more expensive than in the UK (where there are no such bribes).

How much do you estimate it would take to get a politician to flip their view on abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, health care? Seems like if it were "quite low" you'd see politicians flipping views all the time as one side or the other channelled money to them.

What we actually see is a lot of stasis, refusal to compromise, and politicians locked in with their party, which suggests it is pretty hard to influence politicians.

Where money is effective is using it to get politicians who agree with your view elected.

Those are all hot-button issues that can make someone lose their seat. Unless you have enough money that they never have to work again, not going to happen. Almost nobody outside of HN notices the DMCA, but it’s there.

"Buying a politician to vote in a certain way" is not really how it works most of the time. It's more "buying time with a politician so you can give the best possible explanation for your case without any counter-argument". Turns out, that is surprisingly effective, especially when there isn't really an organised counter-movement with similar funds to get politicians ears.

You don’t buy politicians to change their views on the circus items.

The only reason all those “issues” are issues is because they’re intended to distract the public from the actual stuff politicians are being bought for. Transferring wealth to their buyers.

80% of the politicians on both sides of the spectrum have the same beliefs about all those issues.

It'll be much harder to get a politician to flip on an issue that voters care about but much easier to get them to vote one way on an obscure regulation that most voters have never heard of.

This is an interesting observation. Why do you think it is so much lower in UK Vs US? My guess: There are much less private donations in the national UK political system.

US congressional districts being an order of magnitude larger than UK constituencies probably has something to do with it. Also, there are significantly more MPs than representatives, so you have to swing more legislators to your side in the UK vs the US to get your pet policies adopted.

(Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituencies_of_the_Parliame... )

But you can get a seat at the table for negotiations if the Tories are in power and you're a part of the Leaders group or the Treasury group of donors. All for £50k.

Leaders group puts you in touch with the Tory party leader (who is often the PM if the Tories are in power). Treasury group invites you to meetings with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

US politians are routinely bought for numbers similar to the UK ones.

They will often vote in a way that their constituents do not want for ~10k in campaign contributions.

They didn't have to worry about the voters finding out about it (this is changing with alternative media) beacuse the same people bought ads on the major networks.

In India one doesn’t just bribe a politician, one hires an expensive lawyer who “handles” the case.

The real bribery starts at the bottom of the pyramid.

Say you want a water connection. The rate is set on the size of the property, and each layer in the pyramid knows exactly how many square feet were approved and what their individual percentage will be.

And again, you can’t just bribe the fellow directly: you need to go through a trusted agent who acts as a cut-out between the briber and the bribed. This started after the Lok Ayukta started conducting raids. Who says our babus aren’t flexible and innovative?

SK presidents wife cost one Dior bag worth 2200$ USD. Not even Gucci, Chanel, or Louis Vuitton!

It's interesting that the UK has banned gambling ads online, but not on TV. Combined with the fact that they regulate cryptocurrencies as gambling, that's why you get no UK crypto ads online. For example, the PayPal UK front page doesn't even mention that you can buy crypto there.

Do you have the link that regulate crypto as gambling in UK? I tried Google it but no luck.

wait if crypto is gambling, then they don't tax the proceeds, right? but I'm pretty sure they tax it as capital gains..... so it's gambling for advertising purposes but capital investment for tax purposes...

I suppose the law is an ass.

This isn't true. OP may be confusing things like this - https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-business... - as saying that crypto is regulated as gambling, but it's not.

Maybe this is blurring the line between online and TV, but TV streaming services definitely have gambling ads. A gambling ad literally just came on the Channel 4 player in front of me as I started typing this.

You can buy crypto on PayPal?? Our New Zealand version doesn't mention it either.

Not in New Zealand. The USA, the UK, and Luxembourg only.

I'm not in the UK, but yeah it's nothing short of fucking disgusting how plastered TV is with these incessant gambling ads. "Gamble on slots on your phone while you're in the metro, the hairdresser, the dentist!" they shout, at kids and adults alike, 2 times every minute on every commercial break. Disgusting.

i was going to comment on this. gambling ads of all kinds, sky-bet, sky vegas casino + whatever in their hydra form. in depressed places like luton - you see how gambling has destroyed the little that remained.

ban gambling companies from sponsoring sports teams, from being associated with sports teams etc.

It is very noticeable that the gambling shops are clustered around the poorest parts of every town.

I grew up near a gambling shop. You would see the punters desparately trying to eek out every last puff on their roll-up cigarettes, while the gambling shop owner would drive up in his Rolls Royce.

Or massive vaping ads on the side of school buses.

I wonder if a prohibition to have gambling ads on TV would affect the Premier League teams that have gambling sponsorships

Let's just ban all ads!

A good start would be a ban on ads based on who is viewing the ad vs what the content surrounding the ad is...

So, Casper mattress wants to have an ad spot in a podcast or a YouTube video in the video itself? That's ok.

YouTube wants to include an ad about a mattress in a video about home renovation? Also ok.

Stack overflow wants to show an ad for GitHub? Is ok to me.

YouTube wants to show an ad about Casper mattress based on whether someone has clicked on an ad about mattresses before? Banned!

This alone would be a great start.

Or... just get rid of them all.

I was joking, but I think you make my point better.

Sarcasm I hope...

This will make zero difference these days.

What about alcohol? Or other carb heavy or sugar heavy products? Why these?

As referenced by beejiu elsewhere on this thread[1], it applies to all foods products based on their nutritional content; there are no exemptions. Alcohol, however, does appear not to be covered by these new rules, but there are existing restrictions about advertising alcohol - [2] is one document on the topic, although I can't immediately tell if it's out of date.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42360734

[2]: https://www.asa.org.uk/static/uploaded/d3683dc1-189e-413c-86...

Advertising alcohol to children is, of course, already illegal.

What's TV? Some kind of primitive multicast YouTube?

Anything TV related is irrelevant nowadays

So UK doesn't have freedom of speech any more? If the products are bad for people/kids/etc, why not ban the products instead of just the ads?

UK never had freedom of speech the way we think of it in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingd... I highlighted the explicit loophole here:

“Article 10 – Freedom of expression

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”

Is it legal in the US to directly market cigarettes to children? Why not?

An interesting wrinkle in the cigarettes example is it’s illegal sell them to kids.

So advertising to kids is actively trying to conduct an illegal transaction.

As far as I know, the US bans all tobacco advertising on TV. And obviously adults can still smoke.

Radio and TV has long had more limited free speech protections because it’s a shared and thus finite resource. Thus the fines for curse words, nudity, etc.

Banning in magazines targeting kids is a separate question.

All these laws make me want to step outside and take a long, smooth drag on a Marlboro Light.

Yes, it's the ads. After all, we know how economical and fast it is for people to access healthy meals. I look forward to the speedy eradication of all obesity problems

The perfect. Enemy of the good.

this is exactly the type of policy you'd expect from a governing body that is completely out of touch with the working class. I can imagine the cambridge, UCL, and oxford graduates patting eachother on the back after the meeting, congratulating themselves on solving childhood obesity.

It's what you'd expect of a country that's rapidly diving into Orwellian dystopia.

Do you actually live in the UK or is this based on Musk tweets?

NTA but I went to London for new years two years ago and it was worse than Musk’s tweets.

“See it. Say it. Sort it”

Ugh

I live in the UK. It is far from perfect and the laws restricting the right to peaceful protest (enacted by the last government) had a very unwelcome authoritarian edge. But I don't see it "rapidly diving into Orwellian dystopia".

Also London, is very different to the rest of the UK, in many ways.

>“See it. Say it. Sort it”

You know that the UK has a long history of terrorists placing bombs on public transport?

> I live in the UK

Do you live in all of the UK?

I don't pay attention to Musk's tweets but I'm not surprised that he has made the same observation as me and many others.

...and of course many in the UK are too scared to speak out.

Edit: apparently there are bots watching this and ready to bury the truth! How easy it is to expose them...

Uhm... the country we're talking about is the UK. Not some US state...

The US is heading down the same path but the UK (and much of the EU) is further along.

What about no ads, at all? Have you ever thought of that? Just stop and consider the ramifications of such a ban. Most junk on TV and the Internet would not exist once people were forced to pay directly for consuming (eugh) it. YouTube would go back to what it was almost twenty years ago, for one. Imagine a Google with no ad-ridden, SEO-tweaked, LLM-generated sites in the results, not a single mainstream media outlet to be seen... one can only dream. Now, for junk food (the actual subject of this thread), I wager its sales would be severely diminished, or heavily diversified between other, less successful brands, at least.

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