[cj]

> Campaigners say the law will cause a harmful loss of information

I find this quote from the article amusing.

If EU political ads are anything like USA political ads, the objective of the ad is rarely, if ever, to educate the audience.

The objective of most political ads is to confuse, disorient, and distort the narrative.

[jopsen]

I don't think the political ads are like in the US.

Not at all.

Also the scale is no where near.

TV2 in Denmark just ran an article saying that the 24 politicians and parties buying the most ads bought a total of 250k ads ahead of this policy coming into effect.

Note that same month last year the spend was ~1/3.

I know Denmark is small, ~5-6M, but that's doesn't seem like a lot of money.

[beezlebroxxxxxx]

The amount of money in US politics and elections in particular is staggering when you think about it. In 15 weeks Kamala Harris' campaign spent $1.5 billion. That's just insane. Especially when you find out that a lot of that spend goes through "media consultancies" and PR firms...run by former DNC staffers. And the same is true for the RNC. The two parties are basically a giant revolving door and network of jobs with access to this enormous slush fund.

[docdeek]

Here in France the presidential candidates who make it to the second round are limited to spending €22.5 million over the course of the entire campaign (first and second rounds). About half gets reimbursed from public funds, so you 'only' need to raise about €10-12 million. Hard limits on campaign donations (about €4K) mean big money impacts the race less, and limits on advertising means you don't have to spend it on TV ads or direct mail.

Spending $1.5 billion on a campaign (and still losing) is near unfathomable.

[jopsen]

> Spending $1.5 billion on a campaign (and still losing) is near unfathomable.

Perhaps we should be delighted in the fact that political ads can win an election.

I have a hard time seeing other positive outcomes :)

[dmurray]

It does seem like a lot of money, but distributed across all Americans it's not that insane. Americans spend approximately the same on election ads as on chewing gum.

Here's a source, but h/t James Gleick for the comparison: https://www.statista.com/topics/1841/chewing-gum/

[beloch]

The first thing an American politician does after winning an election is start fundraising for their next election. Governing would be an afterthought were it not so helpful in raising money.

[lovich]

Your post sounds conspiratorial but there are basic economic reasons why those revolving doors seem to exist.

Every campaign is going to need largely the same set of skill sets in their campaign staff. Spinning up these groups and also going through the startup time of any new team learning to work together costs a lot of time and money.

So several of these standard skill sets, like data science, marketing, etc have been spun out into companies or consulting firms that are treated like a pool of available resources by campaigns based on their party.

It’s not treated as a slush fund and there’s usually a handful of competitors in your parties pool but you do end up working with a lot of the same faces at different clients/campaigns if you work at one of the servicing companies.

I worked at one of them once and I recall realizing that fact when I asked why a coworkers email had numeral in his name when he had a relatively uncommon first and last name

[ruszki]

Heavily depends on the country: Hungary. The government routinely the largest spender in Europe for online advertisement.

Btw, they just started categorise their online ads as non political through proxy companies. And they just jump to a new company when one becomes blocked.

[floxy]

>distort the narrative

Whatever would we do if we didn't have the corporate/billionaire narrative to guide our lives!

[dylan604]

Clearly, they educate us into why they think their opponent is bad. /s

Reform should state that campaign ads can only discuss what the candidate's positions are, and not be able to say anything about their opponent. If you can't tell me what your plans are and all you can do is say why the other position is wrong, then you're not showing me you'd be an effective person to hold office.

However, that's what your website is for. Stop interrupting my whatever I was doing.

[lern_too_spel]

They think their opponent is bad because their opponent is not themself. That's not what the ads typically say though. Instead, they try to mislead uninformed voters into thinking the opponent is bad in the quickest way possible instead of explaining why the opponent is actually bad, which doesn't fit in a banner.

[immibis]

Also that they have to actually be your positions and you can't just promise one thing and do a completely different thing.

[patrickmay]

Holding politicians legally accountable for their campaign promises will never happen, but I love the idea.

[dylan604]

My favorite reform idea is to make politicians wear NASCAR style suits with all of their sponsor's logos attached

[dylan604]

Then they'd all say the same thing with "my positions will be those of whoever writes the largest check"

[immibis]

That would be allowed. If that's what voters want, they can vote for that. Voting to dissolve a democracy is allowed.