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.
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?
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.
(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).
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 :-)
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.
Milton Friedman had a great point during this talk [1], same argument from 50 years ago.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Infinite individual freedom doesn't exist, it stops where others' individual freedom starts.
What defines harm? Or more specifically, who?
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.
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
Good. Majorities shouldn't be able to steamroller minorities.
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.
I'm allowed to say that right, you won't attack me for having an opinion?
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.
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.
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.
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.
The level of reading comprehension on this website really is astonishingly low. It's about restrictions on advertising, not bans on products.