6 ms·

Your scenario is not equivalent. A buyer and seller shake on an implicit contract when a purchase is made, and enforcement of a contract you agreed to is not ce

Your scenario is not equivalent. A buyer and seller shake on an implicit contract when a purchase is made, and enforcement of a contract you agreed to is not censorship. A more accurate comparison would be me posting a picture of a 3 watt bulb online, claiming it is a 5 watt bulb. I don’t believe that should be illegal, and you would if you were consistent.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
You've missed the point. It's not desirable to have listings which contain false advertising; the remedy for that is to restrict false advertising, not make every buyer chase the seller in a contract dispute after the fact. That would be insanity.
- alphanullmeric 4y ago
  Nope, your comparison is just not equivalent. A sale is a transfer of property. We enforce the implicit contract that goes along with that. The buyer will pay, the seller will deliver, the product is accurate, etc. This discussion is about speech, for which no such contract exists. If you disagree, then you should have no problem arresting people for showing off a 3 watt bulb they claim to be 5 watts.
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    Advertising is speech; there is no sale.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      If there is to be no sale, then is it really advertising at all? If I "advertise" that I own a thing with no intention of selling that thing, then laws about honest advertisement don't apply to me. My car (not for sale) has a nuclear reactor and can travel through time.
      - mjburgess 4y ago
        yes
        LarryMullins 4y ago
        No, not in a sense that triggers truth in advertising laws.
        tremon 4y ago
        If you advertise a product without intent to sell, you're also breaking truth in advertising laws: you're selling vaporware.
      - Sakos 4y ago
        FTC https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-... Counter-example: > What can my company do if a competitor is running an ad that I think is deceptive? > Explore your legal options under federal and state statutes that protect businesses from unfair competition. For example, the Lanham Act gives companies the right to sue their competitors for making deceptive claims in ads. > Are advertising agencies subject to the FTC Act? > Yes. In addition to the advertiser, the advertising agency also may be held legally responsible for misleading claims in ads. Advertising agencies have a duty to make an independent check on the information used to substantiate ad claims. They may not rely on an advertiser's assurance that the claims are substantiated. I don't see anything about false advertising requiring a sale.
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    Holy false equivalent, Batman! The poster's point was pretty simple: there is some speech which doesn't deserve to be fully protected to the highest possible level. Untrue commercial speech like false advertising is pretty much in that category. This is why we allow attorneys-general to bring cases against false advertisers, for example. Usually the remedy is monetary damages, but injunctive relief is also available. I can easily maintain that this is sensible and reasonable without "arresting people for showing a 3 watt bulb they claim to be 5 watts."
    - alphanullmeric 4y ago
      Is there a sale or not? If there's not a sale it's not advertising. If it's not advertising it should be allowed, false or not. If it is advertising it's not just speech. You lack the consistency to make your argument work. So again, I guess you're fine with arresting people over light bulbs.
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
        > If there's not a sale it's not advertising. This is a really strange perspective. Advertising is only advertising once the advertised product is sold? A billboard is simultaneously an advertisement and not an advertisement depending on whether the observer has purchased the advertised item? Not the GP but no, I'm not fine with arresting people over light bulbs. I am totally cool with arresting them for fraud if it meets that standard. I am also cool with the business being fined or otherwise sanctioned for false advertisement. The product is beside the point. The deception is what the punishment is intended to address.
        alphanullmeric 4y ago
        There’s an implicit conversion between intent to sell and actually selling. For there to be advertising, one of the two has to be true. If I’m showing off my car, am I advertising anything?
        4y ago
  - VanTheBrand 4y ago
    You are getting lost in the weeds of an imperfect metaphor.
    - alphanullmeric 4y ago
      But I have a perfect metaphor. Should it be illegal to post a picture of a 3 watt bulb, captioned as 5 watts?
      - dividedbyzero 4y ago
        Depends on the context. If it's part of an ad for a lightbulb you're actually selling, yes. If it's a stupid meme, no.
  - Teever 4y ago
    People can be victims of false advertising even if they don't actually complete a transaction with the offender.
    - bentlegen 4y ago
      “These other products give you cancer! Only use Febreze to mask odours in your home.” viewer goes and tosses out all their presumably-cancer causing products, never purchases Febreze
      - monetus 4y ago
        In a similar vein, there is a "fruits and veggies" vitamins commercial that advocates skipping meals to afford the vitamins, as they give you all you need.
  - jliptzin 4y ago
    Not a lawyer but I could imagine a situation where you're in a store and you see an advertisement for a blue light bulb that says that blue light bulbs are proven to disinfect surfaces. You remember you have some blue light bulbs at home, so you go home and screw them in. Or maybe you go on amazon and order some blue light bulbs because they're cheaper, even though different brands are not making that claim, the first one tricked you into thinking it was true. You haven't entered into any contract with the manufacturer making that false claim, yet you are still harmed by it.
    - spoiler 4y ago
      Right, but people (and companies) lie all the time, and it's not something that's illegal. It's amoral, but not illegal. I'm not sure where I stand on the matter personally. Like, taking the constant social turmoil in America as an example: anything people dislike they call disinformation/fake news, but are equally guilty and okay with of spreading and allowing the same behaviour if it furthers their agenda. Or they will at least be more lenient to their side of the arguments indulging in it, since it aligns with their biases. I've seen this happen from both right wing and left wing members one Twitter and on Reddit. I personally don't use these platforms, but I've seen various threads with insane amounts of hypocrisy. There's so many nuance and unresolved problems. Like, how do we know truth isn't what's being censored? How can we even tell in this day and age when the truth is? It's often diluted with some hidden agenda. Either political or corporate (or oftentimes both). I can't sit for hours fact checking everything I read from different sources. I have a job, and I also don't want to spend all my free time on it. But on the other hand it's also topic I care about (just not THAT much I guess?). Who to trust? And I feel like this "the ones in power control what's true" generally feels like a slippery slope. I also hate that I'm beginning to sound like a crazy tinfoil-wearing person. Idk, humans are complicated. Social media in its current iteration was a mistake, since it created platforms for some very dangerous and narcissistic people
vkou 4y ago
No, his scenario is not equivalent, but here's a few more: "Hello, this is just a reminder that your voting station will be open between 5 pm and 9 pm in (somewhere where it's not actually located), please remember to vote!" "Hello, if you would like a free ride to your voting station, please text us 'YES', and wait at (location) between X and Y pm (Nobody will show up)." "Hello, we have a great offer for auto insurance, blah, blah, blah." "Hello, just a reminder, millions of trustworthy people believe that <opposition candidate> was responsible for <something untrue and horrible>. This isn't slander, because we are just strongly implying it in this robocall. Also, they live at XY address, and won't someone rid is of this meddlesome priest?" "Hello, all the doctors are lying to you, buy our snake oil wellness supplements, instead. They are supplements, not drugs, we don't answer to the FDA." "Hello, let's go down to sixth and Broadway next Tuesday, and make some noise/put the fear of God into <group>" "<Ethnic minority group> is burning this country's forests down using space lasers." "Hello, please be aware that it's illegal to discuss your salary with your coworkers."
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  “Hello, X is hosting strip shows with men dressed in women’s clothes and are grooming your children!”
- junofan 4y ago
  Except for the last, those are just lies that people in power find inconvenient. People were saying way more ridiculous things in the summer of 1787, and yet the country I live in enshrined free speech rights.
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    They also enshrined slavery, assuming you mean the US. Who cares what they enshrined? They have no credibility. If the merit of the argument holds no weight, then the fact that “the founding fathers” made it doesn’t make it more (or less) correct.
  - vkou 4y ago
    > Except for the last, those are just lies that people in power find inconvenient. A few of them are plain-old voter suppression, and ~50% of the time, people in power find them incredibly convenient. You don't see them very often, because in most free countries, trying any of them is an incredibly serious offence.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago

You've missed the point. It's not desirable to have listings which contain false advertising; the remedy for that is to restrict false advertising, not make every buyer chase the seller in a contract dispute after the fact. That would be insanity.

alphanullmeric 4y ago
Nope, your comparison is just not equivalent. A sale is a transfer of property. We enforce the implicit contract that goes along with that. The buyer will pay, the seller will deliver, the product is accurate, etc. This discussion is about speech, for which no such contract exists. If you disagree, then you should have no problem arresting people for showing off a 3 watt bulb they claim to be 5 watts.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Advertising is speech; there is no sale.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    If there is to be no sale, then is it really advertising at all? If I "advertise" that I own a thing with no intention of selling that thing, then laws about honest advertisement don't apply to me. My car (not for sale) has a nuclear reactor and can travel through time.
    - mjburgess 4y ago
      yes
      - LarryMullins 4y ago
        No, not in a sense that triggers truth in advertising laws.
        tremon 4y ago
        If you advertise a product without intent to sell, you're also breaking truth in advertising laws: you're selling vaporware.
    - Sakos 4y ago
      FTC https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-... Counter-example: > What can my company do if a competitor is running an ad that I think is deceptive? > Explore your legal options under federal and state statutes that protect businesses from unfair competition. For example, the Lanham Act gives companies the right to sue their competitors for making deceptive claims in ads. > Are advertising agencies subject to the FTC Act? > Yes. In addition to the advertiser, the advertising agency also may be held legally responsible for misleading claims in ads. Advertising agencies have a duty to make an independent check on the information used to substantiate ad claims. They may not rely on an advertiser's assurance that the claims are substantiated. I don't see anything about false advertising requiring a sale.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  Holy false equivalent, Batman! The poster's point was pretty simple: there is some speech which doesn't deserve to be fully protected to the highest possible level. Untrue commercial speech like false advertising is pretty much in that category. This is why we allow attorneys-general to bring cases against false advertisers, for example. Usually the remedy is monetary damages, but injunctive relief is also available. I can easily maintain that this is sensible and reasonable without "arresting people for showing a 3 watt bulb they claim to be 5 watts."
  - alphanullmeric 4y ago
    Is there a sale or not? If there's not a sale it's not advertising. If it's not advertising it should be allowed, false or not. If it is advertising it's not just speech. You lack the consistency to make your argument work. So again, I guess you're fine with arresting people over light bulbs.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
      > If there's not a sale it's not advertising. This is a really strange perspective. Advertising is only advertising once the advertised product is sold? A billboard is simultaneously an advertisement and not an advertisement depending on whether the observer has purchased the advertised item? Not the GP but no, I'm not fine with arresting people over light bulbs. I am totally cool with arresting them for fraud if it meets that standard. I am also cool with the business being fined or otherwise sanctioned for false advertisement. The product is beside the point. The deception is what the punishment is intended to address.
      - alphanullmeric 4y ago
        There’s an implicit conversion between intent to sell and actually selling. For there to be advertising, one of the two has to be true. If I’m showing off my car, am I advertising anything?
        4y ago
- VanTheBrand 4y ago
  You are getting lost in the weeds of an imperfect metaphor.
  - alphanullmeric 4y ago
    But I have a perfect metaphor. Should it be illegal to post a picture of a 3 watt bulb, captioned as 5 watts?
    - dividedbyzero 4y ago
      Depends on the context. If it's part of an ad for a lightbulb you're actually selling, yes. If it's a stupid meme, no.
- Teever 4y ago
  People can be victims of false advertising even if they don't actually complete a transaction with the offender.
  - bentlegen 4y ago
    “These other products give you cancer! Only use Febreze to mask odours in your home.” viewer goes and tosses out all their presumably-cancer causing products, never purchases Febreze
    - monetus 4y ago
      In a similar vein, there is a "fruits and veggies" vitamins commercial that advocates skipping meals to afford the vitamins, as they give you all you need.
- jliptzin 4y ago
  Not a lawyer but I could imagine a situation where you're in a store and you see an advertisement for a blue light bulb that says that blue light bulbs are proven to disinfect surfaces. You remember you have some blue light bulbs at home, so you go home and screw them in. Or maybe you go on amazon and order some blue light bulbs because they're cheaper, even though different brands are not making that claim, the first one tricked you into thinking it was true. You haven't entered into any contract with the manufacturer making that false claim, yet you are still harmed by it.
  - spoiler 4y ago
    Right, but people (and companies) lie all the time, and it's not something that's illegal. It's amoral, but not illegal. I'm not sure where I stand on the matter personally. Like, taking the constant social turmoil in America as an example: anything people dislike they call disinformation/fake news, but are equally guilty and okay with of spreading and allowing the same behaviour if it furthers their agenda. Or they will at least be more lenient to their side of the arguments indulging in it, since it aligns with their biases. I've seen this happen from both right wing and left wing members one Twitter and on Reddit. I personally don't use these platforms, but I've seen various threads with insane amounts of hypocrisy. There's so many nuance and unresolved problems. Like, how do we know truth isn't what's being censored? How can we even tell in this day and age when the truth is? It's often diluted with some hidden agenda. Either political or corporate (or oftentimes both). I can't sit for hours fact checking everything I read from different sources. I have a job, and I also don't want to spend all my free time on it. But on the other hand it's also topic I care about (just not THAT much I guess?). Who to trust? And I feel like this "the ones in power control what's true" generally feels like a slippery slope. I also hate that I'm beginning to sound like a crazy tinfoil-wearing person. Idk, humans are complicated. Social media in its current iteration was a mistake, since it created platforms for some very dangerous and narcissistic people

vkou 4y ago

No, his scenario is not equivalent, but here's a few more: "Hello, this is just a reminder that your voting station will be open between 5 pm and 9 pm in (somewhere where it's not actually located), please remember to vote!" "Hello, if you would like a free ride to your voting station, please text us 'YES', and wait at (location) between X and Y pm (Nobody will show up)." "Hello, we have a great offer for auto insurance, blah, blah, blah." "Hello, just a reminder, millions of trustworthy people believe that <opposition candidate> was responsible for <something untrue and horrible>. This isn't slander, because we are just strongly implying it in this robocall. Also, they live at XY address, and won't someone rid is of this meddlesome priest?" "Hello, all the doctors are lying to you, buy our snake oil wellness supplements, instead. They are supplements, not drugs, we don't answer to the FDA." "Hello, let's go down to sixth and Broadway next Tuesday, and make some noise/put the fear of God into <group>" "<Ethnic minority group> is burning this country's forests down using space lasers." "Hello, please be aware that it's illegal to discuss your salary with your coworkers."

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
“Hello, X is hosting strip shows with men dressed in women’s clothes and are grooming your children!”
junofan 4y ago
Except for the last, those are just lies that people in power find inconvenient. People were saying way more ridiculous things in the summer of 1787, and yet the country I live in enshrined free speech rights.
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  They also enshrined slavery, assuming you mean the US. Who cares what they enshrined? They have no credibility. If the merit of the argument holds no weight, then the fact that “the founding fathers” made it doesn’t make it more (or less) correct.
- vkou 4y ago
  > Except for the last, those are just lies that people in power find inconvenient. A few of them are plain-old voter suppression, and ~50% of the time, people in power find them incredibly convenient. You don't see them very often, because in most free countries, trying any of them is an incredibly serious offence.