[omgJustTest]

Sure, but paying for an anti-shark fin commercial might be as much as a single portal monitor.

Having portal monitors that serve many purposes is good, and generally the biggest impact they have is in the deterrence effect, ie bad actors might be constrained by their existence. However in order for deterrence to be effective it must be a credible capability. Since there are so many smugglers, and they could reasonably implement simple countermeasures, it is likely the deterrence effect is small to nil in this case.

[llamaimperative]

Isn’t the whole point that the portal monitors are already bought, paid for, and in fact operated by other people?

[jjoonathan]

Nobody cares about preachy commercials, except in that doing the opposite of what they preach makes you edgy and cool.

A big celeb getting caught doing something gauche and getting dogpiled in the press? That is what effective deterrent looks like.

[bluGill]

People say that, but the data proves good commercials work. Of course not all commercials work, but there is plenty of data showing they do work and what works.