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(Does this count as CW? Happy to post it somewhere else if that would be more appropriate.)
I really liked the idea of banning advertising from this blog post (though the post itself is somewhat poorly written and light on the details). HN has a lively discussion of it. I've seen some mentions of this idea here and there but never a really good analysis on it. And I want to change that!
The first step is of course to tighten up the definitions. The most important is to define advertising. I would define it as:
(Maybe the resident lawyers here could have a crack at cleaning this up?)
The underlying theory of harm is that party C is getting inaccurate information designed (often very well designed) to manipulate them into a decision not in their interests. Note that crowding out good information is also very much part of the harm. If C is getting good information from sources not paid for it, it is reasonable that these unpaid sources won't put as much effort into disseminating information as sources paid to spread information (which presumably won't be as truthful due to the conflicting interests from party A).
To clean up potential fuzzy boundaries (I'm sure I've missed a bunch):
So, what is illegal?
Why do I want this?
Possible objections?
Any thoughts?
It would just be impossible especially with more relationships online.
Every conversation on the motte would need to be monitored and bank accounts checked to make sure now one is being paid for promoting a product. It’s not at all weird for online communities to end up having discussions on best car to buy or lawnmower. There would be no way to differentiate between guy being paid and guy just talking about what he likes.
How do porn ads work? Usually I just X out and with thousands of times masturbating I can’t think of how any ad resulted in money changing hands.
Honestly don’t even know how meta ads works. The only thing I’ve ever bought from a meta ad was one of those ads you get when you already bought the thing. Sometimes I buy more. I have no idea if that’s freeloading some ad revenue on what I was going to buy or influenced me.
But if we did manage to get rid of 95% of ads my gut says I would like the world better and things would be cheaper. I currently have zero stock positions in businesses making money off selling ads so now would be a great time for Trump to announce no more ads.
And of course obviously stupid debate for first amendment reasons. I think a lot of current ad limitations are unconstitutional.
The cops don't go around drug testing your food every single time you go to a restaurant. But what if there was fentanyl in your cocktail?!
Enforcement is always a sliding scale and thankfully has good economies of scale. If someone is doing something blatantly illegal, only a few people need to spot one instance of it for the whole thing to come to light (and ex post punishments work quite well). And yes, minor violations will slip by. As long as the major violations get caught, we've still made a lot of progress.
One thing that helps us here is that people at large don't like ads. We're not trying to prevent a transaction that all parties consider beneficial and therefore all parties have an incentive to hide. At least one party here (the final customer marketed to) is getting harmed (and believes that they're getting harmed). And I suspect a lot of corporations don't like paying through the nose for marketing either but just can't do anything about it. I suspect they'd love a legally enforced marketing truce so they could get back to competing on the merits of their products. After all, why does the average nerd get into making something? Because they love the prospect of marketing it? Or actually making it?
You don't. But I'm sure some consumer of porn would. Or just websites who don't want their competition to get an illicit leg up in the market? We only need one (or a few) of them to bring in the authorities.
Thanks. Thought gotta admit I got a small laugh out of the idea of Trump (or really anybody in federal government) pulling off something this contentious and complicated.
The supreme court has been willing to be fairly nuanced for example in the case of porn and political donations. Campaign finance laws are still a thing even though the supreme court has ruled that political donations are covered by the first amendment.
They also don't like it when the entire internet implodes and the parts that are left suddenly all cost money. It's one thing to fantasize about what you'd do if you were absolute dictator, but if you're involving public opinion in this game then it ends with you being tarred and feathered.
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