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I believe that advertising could be used maliciously but I don't believe advertising is inherently malicious.

• tremon 5y ago
  Maybe not inherently, but in practice, it is. Pretty much all ads are forms of emotional manipulation (FOMO, artificial status boosters, nurturing insecurities about life, body image, or career) or self-serving statistics and figures. The only ads that aren't malicious are independent consumer test reports, and they're only independent if the original manufacturer didn't pay for them. And if we accept that advertising is malicious by default, all attempts to improve the reach or effectiveness of ads can only be a net negative to society. And that's not even touching on the entire surveillance infrastructure that has been constructed in the name of advertising, which we can similarly classify as malicious.