ban digital advertisement at a federal level and 95% of the underlying problems are solved at the incentive level
This is what I meant by angry mob pitchfork ideas. This isn’t a real idea, it’s just rage venting.
It’s also wrong, as anyone familiar with the problems in pay-to-play social video games for kids, which are not ad supported, can tell you. These platforms have just as many problems if not more, yet advertising has nothing to do with it. I bet you could charge $10/month for Instagram and the same social problems would exist. It’s a silly suggestion.
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2025/01/22/tc-2...
Why do you think it would be ineffective here?
I'm also curious on how you think we might tackle these issues.
They don’t want anyone to be able to advertise anything. Not even your local contractors trying to advertise their businesses that you want to find, because that’s advertising.
The tobacco ad ban isn’t relevant to what was claimed.
This wasn't my reading of it, but it does appear that's what GP meant. I don't agree with that. Even so, if you were interested in having a good faith discussion about solutions here, you might have responded to both interpretations.
You may consider this me putting forth the suggestion as an answer to your question, if you must.
The mere fact that commenters think banning advertising is a simple and realistic idea, without any constitutional road blocks or practical objections, is what I mean when I say these comment sections are just angry bloviating with unrealistic expectations.
If you think banning all advertising is “simple” then I don’t know what to say, but there isn’t a real conversation here.
constitutional roadblock…to banning digital advertisement? please do explain!
I didn’t claim it’s easy to get it done in the real world, but it’s not a reactive/vindictive pitchfork idea. it’s really not that hard, if people wanted it we’ve banned plenty of things at the federal level in this country over the years (the hard part is of course people realizing how detrimental digital advertising is)
it’s a simple solution that’s very effective. obviously any large-scale change, to fix a large-scale problem, is not “simple” to implement, but it’s also not fucking rocket science on this one mate
you’re clearly not having a conversation in good faith. you asked, I answered, I’m done with this
Why stop there? Why not just shut down the whole internet? Simple and effective. Ban cell phones. Simple and effective.
These are just silly ways of thinking about the world.
please stop ascribing intent I do not have and words I did not say in your juvenile attempt to win an argument
p.s. still would love to hear your constitutional argument against it! banning digital advertisement at the federal level is not unrealistic and if you've actually given it the thought you’re pretending to and still reach that conclusion, I do have an ad hominem to throw back at you
You don’t need to hear my argument against it. The fact that advertising your services is free speech is well established. It’s a major challenge for movements like those trying to tackle pharmaceutical advertising.
Also, if you can’t see how I’ve been addressing your arguments and you think it’s all ad hominem then I don’t think there’s any real conversation to be had here. Between all the downvotes you’re collecting and the weird attempts to ignore everything I say and pretend it’s ad hominem as a defensive tactic, this is pure trolling at this point.
1) downvotes: you’re the one insinuating HN commenters (and presumably voters) are idiots; I’m not sure that I should care if I’m downvoted while correct. and regardless, doesn’t seem like I’m very downvoted (rather the opposite) so not sure what your point is. try making one next time!
2) freedom of speech: lol! I just want to point out I had no fucking clue that’s what you were angling for before. rather than launch into attacks as you do, I actually try to understand things. this argument doesn’t concern me at all, I was worried I wasn’t aware of something in the constitution you’d brilliantly raise
we are beyond having a conversation at this point, but if you actually raised your arguments against banning digital advertisement (freedom of speech and ??? solving real-world problems is hard?) I would have debated them on their merits, you troll
What constitutes an advertisement is not a simple proposition. eg Is a paragraph describing some facts (phrased carefully) about a product or company an advertisement?
To what effect speech would have to be controlled to enforce this, is unthinkable. While some handwaving is necessary, as anyone can agree (since even the simplest legislation would be corrupted by the US political class), "banning advertising" is not a practical goal.
it’s quite a simple definition of what is or is not advertisement. run it through real world examples, it’s trivial to say whether something is or isn’t an advertisement
as with any broad regulation there would be grey areas, continued cat and mouse games with bad actors, etc.
but it is not a remotely insurmountable obstacle to define what is and is not advertisement in relation to free speech
(as an aside it’s really funny to me anyone would consider being paid to say something free speech, but I get it)
I don't watch regular TV, anymore, so I don't know if it still is in place.
Mentioning "banning advertising" on HN is bound to draw downvotes. A significant number of HN members make money directly, or indirectly, from digital advertising.
It's like walking into a mosque, and demanding they allow drinking.
Won't end well.
At least in my state, there isn’t even a ban on advertising online gambling!! It is quite a stretch to think we could move from there to banning any kind of advertising.
It has nothing to do with the fact that a bunch of HN readers make money from ads. I don’t.
I wish we could discuss the issue here, and instead would have liked to hear from you why you think it is a pitically unrealistic proposal, and what your criteria is for seeming something politically unrealistic.
Either I misunderstand something or I'm baffled how anyone can consider that easy.
We've banned literally all tobacco ads and its... fine. I mean not for the tobacco company, but who cares?
I'm not gonna advocate making the world worse so some people stay employed. That's so counter productive. Who knows - maybe in a less shitty world, new jobs will emerge!
Of course not, clearly you just need a captured congress and an EO. Can’t be too hard to find a reason to turn Trump against Zuckerberg.
Then when states start doing things like adding ID requirements for websites it’s shock and rage as the consequences of banning things (even for under 18s) encounter the realities of what happens when you “just ban” things.
ID requirements seem like the main burden is being put on ordinary people instead of corporations, and by extension seems clearly bad.
What does that have to do with anything?
It doesn’t matter where you ban it, if you turn off oil overnight a lot of people are left stranded from their jobs, sectors of the economy collapse, unemployment becomes out of control.
Banning things like this is just fantasy talk that only makes sense to people who can’t imagine consequences or think they don’t care. I guarantee you would change your mind very quickly about banning oil overnight as soon as the consequence became obvious.
GP (and I) have given you several examples of stuff society learned was harmful and then phased out with regulations/legislation. No, it didn't and does not happen overnight.
Why are you acting in such bad faith, trying to disregard people you don't agree with as "not being able to imagine consequences"?
Who lost their job when leaded gas was banned? A web search did not give me any examples.
This is not true. We currently use ethanol to boost octane, and that additive was known at the time by the company that invented TEL, and they did not use it because they did not control the market for ethanol like they could control the market of a new and patented chemical.
TEL was never actually necessary, and we poisoned ourselves for most of a decade to enrich a corporation. Large scale ethanol (as beer) production was one of humanity's earliest industries.
Indeed, after we banned leaded gas, we tried using yet another stupid poison additive, MTBE, for a decade or so, and that continued to poison people because gas tanks leak and that chemical was toxic. Most of Asia actually still uses MTBE, to their detriment.
Ethanol has never had this problem. Arguably, when Bush required all US gasoline to include 10-20% ethanol, he wasn't even trying to fix the poison problem of MTBE, he might have just been greenwashing and kicking more subsidies to corn growers, but it definitely solved the poisonous additive problem for octane boosters.
Indeed, zero additives for octane are "required" at all. You can produce high octane gasoline just by choosing different refined components but this results in less gasoline produced per barrel of oil.
you just got to get enough people to nod at “…and this is caused by the underlying incentives from digital advertisement” then to “and the most effective course of action is to ban digital advertisement”
I truly don’t believe it’s a big leap, especially after a few more years of all this