5 ms·

As outraged as many folks might be this is just good business for Google and Facebook. Internet advertising, nay advertising at large, is dangerously close to b

by jsonne 9y ago

As outraged as many folks might be this is just good business for Google and Facebook. Internet advertising, nay advertising at large, is dangerously close to becoming a regulated, or more regulated, industry in the wake of fake news and Russian troll farms etc. If they aren't proactive and people lose money they inch ever closer to requirements that can and will eat large chunks of their profit margins. This isn't even to mention that they're also getting pressure from the private side where a couple hundred companies control over half the world's advertising spend and are getting actively called out by consumer advocacy for where they advertise. The handful of dollars they will get from crypto ads (in comparison to their overall spend) pales in comparison to even one Coca Cola, Unilever, etc. pulling their ad spend. Advertising, and media for that matter, is not free and fair market. It is tightly controlled by a handful of players that will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way.

220V_USKettle 9y ago
Acai berry is ok, but Bitcoin is bad?
- afarrell 9y ago
  One's ability to use (and therefore consume and therefore buy) acai berry product close-to-fundamentally limited by biology. Not only that, but there is a lag of as least 1 day between ordering an acai berry product and receiving it. Nobody is going to lose $200K investing in Acai berry. Someone, especially a someone with a smartphone and poor impulse control, might lose $200K investing in a cryptocurrency. The sort of person who has that money to lose is either retired or reasonably wealthy, and therefore has the time or self-advocation skill to have an incremental influence on legislation or regulation.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    Also, Acai Berry promotions are unlikely to fall foul of securities marketing laws, no matter how palpably dishonest they are
- tommorris 9y ago
  Yes, acaí berries are tasty and make a lovely addition to a healthy breakfast. Cryptocurrencies are Internet penny stocks with lofty aspirations.
- cesarb 9y ago
  Sorry if I'm out of the loop, but why would açaí be bad? I can walk a couple of minutes and buy a drink of açaí with guaraná, and I've never heard anything negative about these drinks.
  - candu 9y ago
    Well: "very little research has been done in people on the health effects of acai products." [1] In general, health supplements, miracle berries, etc. sit on dubious scientific ground: many have either not been extensively studied, or have been studied and shown to have no discernible effect (good or bad). The assertion here is not that açaí itself is bad per se, but that it is marketed as being healthy with little or no scientific evidence to back that up - and therefore that people are being convinced to waste their money through deceptive marketing, in that they imagine themselves to be getting a health benefit that likely does not exist. [1] https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acai/ataglance.htm https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acai/ataglance.htm
    - sli 9y ago
      > miracle berries Is this commonly used to refer to acai berries? The only "miracle berry" I know of[1] is named for the effect on perception of flavor caused by the chemical miraculin, which is produced by the berry. They're also extremely fun to introduce to people who have never tried them before, and I highly recommend them for your next party. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum
      - candu 9y ago
        Ah, fair. I was using it here as more of a general term for all berries caught under the umbrella of various health crazes (antioxidants, etc.), but forgot about this berry (which, as you say, is a lot of fun to play around with).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
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jMyles 9y ago
> is dangerously close to becoming a regulated, or more regulated, industry You're absolutely right. And this is an easy, almost childishly obvious end-around to get at free speech. If speech is "political speech," then it is subject regulation suite A. If it is "advertising", then it is subject to regulation suite B. If it is "legal or medical advice," on and on. Until there are no spaces left between the suites, and all speech is regulated.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Neither Facebook nor Google are ""pure"" free speech zones already, or ever were, and both already have categories of advert that you're not allowed.
  - chillingeffect 9y ago
    Yet they are digital commons with near monopolies. Should IRL streets be the only place where pure free speech is allowed? Should the entire internet be a purely corporate space with no constitutional rights permitted, only private access? If we are advised to avoid their near monopolies, should we simply wait for another corporate giant to take their place? In order to exercise our rights of free speech, must we erect our own commercial entities? If so, in what way is the government we're supporting working for us?
    - pjc50 9y ago
      The constitutional right is country-specific and also limited. You're not allowed to publish fraudulent stock prospectuses offline, even in America.
      - jimjimjim 9y ago
        Good example. The venn diagram between the free-speech-or-death people and the market-will-decide people is often very overlapped but your example is a concrete existing example where you COULD publish a false prospectus as an expression of your free speech but you would find yourself very quickly more poor and more incarcerated.
austincheney 9y ago
> As outraged as many folks might be I am thinking that only applies to people who invested in cryptocurrency.
- Shoue 9y ago
  As someone who has invested in cryptocurrencies, I have to say I don't really mind the ban – most crypto ads I've seen so far have been scammy or for subpar copycat cryptocurrencies, and I feel like that'd be the general trend, even if legitimate cryptocurrencies start using ad platforms I feel like they'll be a minority since they already get free advertisement through word of mouth by simply being innovative.
  - saintPirelli 9y ago
    I second that. I actually see it as a positive. The "scammy stuff" that surrounds cryptocurrencies might generate demand and raise prices in the short term, but they are also very likely to deliver devestating blows to public perception and acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the long run.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    Why would you ever need to _advertise_ a cryptocurrency anyway? Can you imagine someone advertising a specific stock, or a fiat currency? That'd be ridiculous! Seems likely to me that most of those ads are just trying to prop-up the price of the currency they're advertising so that the one who bought the ad can dump their holdings at a higher price. I'm a little concerned though that Google's ban here seems to go beyond just ads for currencies themselves. For example, is Brave no longer allowed to advertise its browser on Google because there's a cryto coin associated with it? Are exchanges or hardware wallet manufacturers like TREZOR no longer allowed to advertise their services? If so, I think these restrictions might be overly broad.
    - wyldfire 9y ago
      > Can you imagine someone advertising a specific stock, or a fiat currency? The latter -- yes, that's ridiculous. But not the former. Companies whose stock is traded publicly do advertising all the time. The intended audience for the ads isn't limited to potential buyers of their product. It's often also useful for swaying shareholders, potential shareholders, regulators, etc.
drcode 9y ago
"let's illustrate we're not a monopoly and avoid monopoly regulation by using our market power to arbitrarily ban this one thing"
- ptaipale 9y ago
  Mainstream media is driving campaigns against Google in many countries. They do need to do some PR and appear to do "good" things, even when it is quite clear that is just gesturing.
candiodari 9y ago
Your comment is very right, but the conclusion is very, very wrong. What do you think will cause regulation to happen more quickly: 1) Internet advertisers allowing scammy advertisements ? 2) Internet advertisers using their power for political aims and demonstrating it works for that ? I think going for 2, as they inevitably do when they outlaw advertisements for almost any reason other than being outright forced by a court to do so, will make politicians see them (correctly or not) as an existential threat and get them regulated faster than you can say "machiavelli".
- pjc50 9y ago
  It's too late for (2) - the huge extent of unregulated foreign lie-based advertising in the last US election makes some kind of backlash inevitable. (Domestic lie-based advertising is apparently fine in the US so long as the money is from the US)

by jsonne 9y ago

220V_USKettle 9y ago

Acai berry is ok, but Bitcoin is bad?

afarrell 9y ago
One's ability to use (and therefore consume and therefore buy) acai berry product close-to-fundamentally limited by biology. Not only that, but there is a lag of as least 1 day between ordering an acai berry product and receiving it. Nobody is going to lose $200K investing in Acai berry. Someone, especially a someone with a smartphone and poor impulse control, might lose $200K investing in a cryptocurrency. The sort of person who has that money to lose is either retired or reasonably wealthy, and therefore has the time or self-advocation skill to have an incremental influence on legislation or regulation.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Also, Acai Berry promotions are unlikely to fall foul of securities marketing laws, no matter how palpably dishonest they are
tommorris 9y ago
Yes, acaí berries are tasty and make a lovely addition to a healthy breakfast. Cryptocurrencies are Internet penny stocks with lofty aspirations.
cesarb 9y ago
Sorry if I'm out of the loop, but why would açaí be bad? I can walk a couple of minutes and buy a drink of açaí with guaraná, and I've never heard anything negative about these drinks.
- candu 9y ago
  Well: "very little research has been done in people on the health effects of acai products." [1] In general, health supplements, miracle berries, etc. sit on dubious scientific ground: many have either not been extensively studied, or have been studied and shown to have no discernible effect (good or bad). The assertion here is not that açaí itself is bad per se, but that it is marketed as being healthy with little or no scientific evidence to back that up - and therefore that people are being convinced to waste their money through deceptive marketing, in that they imagine themselves to be getting a health benefit that likely does not exist. [1] https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acai/ataglance.htm https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acai/ataglance.htm
  - sli 9y ago
    > miracle berries Is this commonly used to refer to acai berries? The only "miracle berry" I know of[1] is named for the effect on perception of flavor caused by the chemical miraculin, which is produced by the berry. They're also extremely fun to introduce to people who have never tried them before, and I highly recommend them for your next party. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum
    - candu 9y ago
      Ah, fair. I was using it here as more of a general term for all berries caught under the umbrella of various health crazes (antioxidants, etc.), but forgot about this berry (which, as you say, is a lot of fun to play around with).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jMyles 9y ago

> is dangerously close to becoming a regulated, or more regulated, industry You're absolutely right. And this is an easy, almost childishly obvious end-around to get at free speech. If speech is "political speech," then it is subject regulation suite A. If it is "advertising", then it is subject to regulation suite B. If it is "legal or medical advice," on and on. Until there are no spaces left between the suites, and all speech is regulated.

pjc50 9y ago
Neither Facebook nor Google are ""pure"" free speech zones already, or ever were, and both already have categories of advert that you're not allowed.
- chillingeffect 9y ago
  Yet they are digital commons with near monopolies. Should IRL streets be the only place where pure free speech is allowed? Should the entire internet be a purely corporate space with no constitutional rights permitted, only private access? If we are advised to avoid their near monopolies, should we simply wait for another corporate giant to take their place? In order to exercise our rights of free speech, must we erect our own commercial entities? If so, in what way is the government we're supporting working for us?
  - pjc50 9y ago
    The constitutional right is country-specific and also limited. You're not allowed to publish fraudulent stock prospectuses offline, even in America.
    - jimjimjim 9y ago
      Good example. The venn diagram between the free-speech-or-death people and the market-will-decide people is often very overlapped but your example is a concrete existing example where you COULD publish a false prospectus as an expression of your free speech but you would find yourself very quickly more poor and more incarcerated.

austincheney 9y ago

> As outraged as many folks might be I am thinking that only applies to people who invested in cryptocurrency.

Shoue 9y ago
As someone who has invested in cryptocurrencies, I have to say I don't really mind the ban – most crypto ads I've seen so far have been scammy or for subpar copycat cryptocurrencies, and I feel like that'd be the general trend, even if legitimate cryptocurrencies start using ad platforms I feel like they'll be a minority since they already get free advertisement through word of mouth by simply being innovative.
- saintPirelli 9y ago
  I second that. I actually see it as a positive. The "scammy stuff" that surrounds cryptocurrencies might generate demand and raise prices in the short term, but they are also very likely to deliver devestating blows to public perception and acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the long run.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Why would you ever need to _advertise_ a cryptocurrency anyway? Can you imagine someone advertising a specific stock, or a fiat currency? That'd be ridiculous! Seems likely to me that most of those ads are just trying to prop-up the price of the currency they're advertising so that the one who bought the ad can dump their holdings at a higher price. I'm a little concerned though that Google's ban here seems to go beyond just ads for currencies themselves. For example, is Brave no longer allowed to advertise its browser on Google because there's a cryto coin associated with it? Are exchanges or hardware wallet manufacturers like TREZOR no longer allowed to advertise their services? If so, I think these restrictions might be overly broad.
  - wyldfire 9y ago
    > Can you imagine someone advertising a specific stock, or a fiat currency? The latter -- yes, that's ridiculous. But not the former. Companies whose stock is traded publicly do advertising all the time. The intended audience for the ads isn't limited to potential buyers of their product. It's often also useful for swaying shareholders, potential shareholders, regulators, etc.

drcode 9y ago

"let's illustrate we're not a monopoly and avoid monopoly regulation by using our market power to arbitrarily ban this one thing"

ptaipale 9y ago
Mainstream media is driving campaigns against Google in many countries. They do need to do some PR and appear to do "good" things, even when it is quite clear that is just gesturing.

candiodari 9y ago

Your comment is very right, but the conclusion is very, very wrong. What do you think will cause regulation to happen more quickly: 1) Internet advertisers allowing scammy advertisements ? 2) Internet advertisers using their power for political aims and demonstrating it works for that ? I think going for 2, as they inevitably do when they outlaw advertisements for almost any reason other than being outright forced by a court to do so, will make politicians see them (correctly or not) as an existential threat and get them regulated faster than you can say "machiavelli".

pjc50 9y ago
It's too late for (2) - the huge extent of unregulated foreign lie-based advertising in the last US election makes some kind of backlash inevitable. (Domestic lie-based advertising is apparently fine in the US so long as the money is from the US)