9 ms·

Well, for one thing, some people believe that it is not the role of the Almighty State to dictate and micromanage every single action or inaction that businesse

• rayiner 13y ago
  That freedom of action is generally predicated on the idea of competent individuals and businesses interacting voluntarily. When dealing with children that rationale goes out the window, because children are not competent to voluntarily participate in the economy. There is very little that is more in the province of the state to micromanage, even in a libertarian utopia, than interactions between businesses and people who are legally incompetent, like children. If your counter-argument is predicated on businesses freely exchanging with parents to convince them what products to feed their children, I fully agree that they should be free to do that, but that's distinct from advertising to children directly.
  • nsxwolf 13y ago
    throwit hardly seems to be talking about a libertarian utopia. Kids are susceptible to advertising. They're also susceptible to what their parents teach them. For many of the first years of their lives, they have absolutely no ability to purchase any of these products for themselves. Is it really so much to ask that we be allowed to make our own decisions about food? Come on, we're talking about food! Not medicine. Not heavy machinery or automobiles or airplanes or nuclear energy. Food!
    • rayiner 13y ago
      I'm not saying he's proposing a libertarian utopia. I'm saying that even in a libertarian utopia, regulating interactions between people who are competent to participate freely in the economy and those who are not is reasonably the province of the state. I'm not talking about limiting anybody's decisions. I'm talking about regulating interactions between businesses and people who are incompetent to make their own decisions.
    • neilk 13y ago
      "The Nag Factor": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi63rXnuWbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi63rXnuWbw You don't have to accept the position of the documentary, that the corporate form is intrinsically a bad thing. But tell me that the marketers behind the "Nag Factor" report don't disgust you. It is nice to imagine that each family is an island of rationality, well-informed about choices and their eventual effects, never choosing the easy path, immune to marketing and peer pressure. In the real world, things are a little more complex. And the marketers behind reports like "The Nag Factor" make millions by subverting family relations to serve their purposes. It is good to be skeptical of regulation, but this is so clearly a case where more good can be done than harm.
    • farinasa 13y ago
      >Come on, we're talking about food! This is exactly what makes it so dangerous. Just food? Food is something that can be as deadly as drugs, yet is as accepted as air. >Not medicine. It's worse than medicine exactly for the sentiment you are expressing. No big deal right? It's so normal it couldn't possibly be abused, right? It's exactly the opposite. We can push poison and it's no big deal because it's "just food". It's not about forcing people to make decisions. It's about deceiving people into make the wrong decisions for your own profit. That is not innocent business. That is fraud.
  • davidhollander 13y ago
    The counter-argument is that advertisement is speech, even if it is undesirable, and that speech is information. Parents who do not wish their children exposed to advertising could use the same rules they would use to prevent their children from being exposed to violent media and profanity. I think the solution is for parents to simply start thinking of media portraying drug consumption and media portraying Twinkie consumption as logically equivalent, and for parents to stop paying for an information service to deliver them such media (television), and to demand the market provide a new information service which more adequately matches their preferences for media (a kid-oriented Netflix?). This solution does not require a state to monitor and decode the nutritional value of information transfers.
    • rayiner 13y ago
      Advertising is only kinda speech, in the sense that its a proposal for a commercial transaction. The principles under which advertising is regulated is similar to the principles under which fraud is regulated. Its not speech when you propose to sell something to someone that you don't own or that doesn't do what you claim.
      • davidhollander 13y ago
        For information which functions as advertising to also be a candidate for fraud it must first assert something as fact. There are many forms of advertisement which do not assert facts or even include language. An advertisement could simply consist of a graphical fictional portrayal of consumption or brand usage done in a glamorous light. If something does not include a representation of facts, it does include a potential for fraud, and it would not make sense to regulate it as such solely on a principle of equivalence.
        • leot 13y ago
          That's not the point. The point is that commercial advertising isn't full-blooded speech (and thus may be subject to regulation for the same reason that fraudulent speech is subject to regulation).
  • doctorpangloss 13y ago
    Lemme simplify that for you: Children can't consent. So the state has to protect them. One way to do that is by shielding them from things that hurt them. It happens that junk food hurts them, and a lot of the reason why they eat junk food is because of television ads. Since they can't consent and the state must protect them, we ought to limit advertising unhealthy things to kids.
    • mindcrime 13y ago
      Children can't consent. So the state has to protect them. Or, ya know, their parents.
      • doctorpangloss 13y ago
        Of course! I'm sure 99.9% of parents, if properly educated, would agree that an overweight or obese child is a bad thing. They might not know what to do about it, and TV ads might turn out to be more powerful than parent's routine meal planning. It might turn out that asking them to turn off the TV is impractical. Maybe telling them what to feed their kids is even worse. In terms of practical means to reduce obesity, most parents would not oppose limiting TV advertising to children. Besides, the state is parents. No big deal.
      • harryh 13y ago
        Not Or. Also. We don't have to choose between the two.
      • vidarh 13y ago
        A lot of the time, the measures the state needs to take to protect children includes protecting them from actions of parents that might very well be well-meaning, but just as clueless and easily manipulated by advertising as their children, but all to often even don't care. While I'm for reducing the power of the state, protection of children is not something society can abdicate from without severe negative effects.
        • mindcrime 13y ago
  • nandemo 13y ago
    > because children are not competent to voluntarily participate in the economy. But isn't it still up to the parents to decide what to buy? There's a campaign in my country (Brazil) to ban/regulate all sorts of advertising to children, and I've heard some parents who support it claim (essentially) that they can't say "no" to their children. As someone who grew up in a lower-middle-class family and understood very early that I couldn't have all the toys, or even all the toys my slightly higher-middle-class classmates had, I find that trend rather bizarre.
    • leot 13y ago
      What harm is there in banning advertisement directed at children? Perhaps they may become less well equipped to deal with advertising as adults (but this seems an easy enough problem to solve). Conversely, the benefits of banning children-directed advertising are huge.
    • harryh 13y ago
      It was easy (relatively) for your parents to say "no" because they just couldn't afford it. It's much harder when you can afford it, but you don't think it's good for them to buy your kid YetAnotherPieceOfCrapTheyveBeenAdvertisedIntoWanting(tm).
    • wildgift 13y ago
      There are some parents who will not say "no", and there are some children who will holler until they get their way. The advertisers know this, and will take advantage of it. Different families deal with demand and desire for products differently.
• CodeMage 13y ago
  You're absolutely right! We shouldn't let these petty concerns about the competence of children infringe on our liberties! For too long has the Almighty State been sticking its nose where it doesn't belong and we should do something about all these ridiculous limitations. Why should it be illegal for children to drink alcohol? Their parents should be permitted to make their own choices with regard to the beverages their children consume. Why should it be illegal for an adult to have sexual intercourse with a minor? The parents should be permitted to make their own choices with regard to the sexual behavior of their own children. Down with the meddling of the state! Our freedom is at stake!
  • ams6110 13y ago
    You've made quite a leap from advertising food to kids.
  • jlgreco 13y ago
    "Why should it be illegal for children to drink alcohol? Their parents should be permitted to make their own choices with regard to the beverages their children consume." I think you mean this to be sarcastic and obviously wrong, but many states in the US permit parents to give minors alcohol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Underage_consumption_map_2007.gif http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Underage_consumption_map_2...) Some states permit this anywhere (including in pubs), others restrict it to the home. This is considered entirely reasonable by many, dare I say most, people.
    • CodeMage 13y ago
      There's a balance to strive for between making a statement concisely and making it nitpick-proof. I could have been more factually correct by stating that it's illegal to sell booze directly to minors, but that would've made the tone of my comment less rabidly libertarian. The point, of course, is that parents can make a meaningful decision about whether they'll give booze to their kids a lot more easily than they can do the same for exposing their kids to advertisement. Plus, I'm pretty sure that, even in those states, you could get in some sort of legal trouble for giving whiskey to a 2-year old. Obviously, we can't claim similar level of damage when it comes to advertising, but we don't seem to be willing to look more closely into it, either.
• AJ007 13y ago
  These markets are already intensely and exhaustively managed. I'm not disagreeing with you; what annoys me is that the people who suddenly claim to support business independence from heavy government regulation remain silent until some new law is proposed. If there is a problem with banning businesses from advertising from children, then there is a problem with the FTC today, not tomorrow, because they already heavily regulate advertising, including what you can show to children. In the US government agencies have vast reaching legal authority to create and enforce their own rules. When there is a scandal they answer to elected representatives, but otherwise? Not so much.