[coldtea]

Have we come to such a low cultural point that ads are seen as some kind of basic human right?

Fuck ads. What's absurd is tolerating them and the damage they do to media, consumers, kids, lesser and/or more honest businesses, culture, products, and so on all the way to the Windows and macOS system UIs.

[johnnyanmac]

We're on a startup entrepreneur site. I'm not surprised it's seen as the lifeblood of the industry here. It sort of is.

At the same time, this has the same energy of "if we release all the files, the system will collapse". Maybe we need the billionaires to feel some pain sometimes (even if yes, we'll feel more overall).

[lobf]

I work in ads... :-/

[coldtea]

I think HGttG had a good solution for that involving a large spaceship.

[lobf]

I mean really I work in filmmaking. Ads just fund most of my business.

[forgetfreeman]

Work in something else. I make significantly more doing poison ivy removal than I ever did or was ever going to working in tech.

[rogerrogerr]

Are you willing to share rough numbers? Totally understand if not, just curious. Been thinking about something like this to get away from the AI force-feeding.

[forgetfreeman]

$100-$200 an hour on average for hand work, more if I need to use an excavator.

[rogerrogerr]

What does the friction look like? Insurance, licensing, that kind of thing?

[forgetfreeman]

Very variable depending on a combination of local/state regulations and what kinds of projects you're willing to tackle. The bottom end of the spectrum is a $50 a month general liability policy.

[duskdozer]

I mean, someone got paid for driving trucks dumping toxic waste in the river. I would support policies that ensure you don't lose access to healthcare or suffer in deep poverty from losing a job, but I'm not sympathetic to perpetuating such waste and harm on the basis of "it creates jobs".

[samrus]

I used to be an elevator operator ... :-/

[gchamonlive]

What do you do? Honest question

[lobf]

I work on the production end. I’m a producer and production manager for live-action ads.

[BurningFrog]

Freedom of speech is a basic human right.

Ads are speech.

[coldtea]

>Ads are speech.

No, they are not.

People have been brainwashed and legal systems have been paid and bought for to consider them as such, just like corporations have been whitewashed to be treated as "persons".

In any case, we regulate all other kinds of speech as well: explicit content, libel, classified information, cigarette ads, and so on.

[jimnotgym]

Let's start there. Corporations being persons is a legal fiction to allow them to consolidate capital. Giving that fictional person human rights is abhorrent to humans. It is a crime against humans. It degrades us.

[BurningFrog]

Corporations are groups of people working together. I don't see why that makes people lose their rights.

If only individuals are allowed freedom of speech NYT, CNN, and other news organizations do not have first amendment rights.

Are you sure you've thought this through?

[zajio1am]

No, it just ensures that humans acting through such legal fiction have the same rights as humans acting directly.

[duskdozer]

While granting them protections against legal liability for the things that they do in the name of such an entity.

[mr_00ff00]

We already ban tobacco ads on tv (in the us) is their freedom of speech violated?

I don’t think you need to count companies being able to put any message out there as free speech.

[direwolf20]

Shouting fire in a crowded theater is also speech. So is publishing a highly detailed plan for anyone to kill the president and usurp power. So is child pornography. There's a long list of precedents that free speech in America is not absolute.

And this is about Europe, which has never had an absolutist view of rights to begin with. In Europe, rights are seen as intended to be balanced against each other instead of maximizing an arbitrary set of them to 100%. You have the right to free expression (except in... most countries, so let's call it a theoretical right) as well as the right to not be preyed upon. Although it's legal to distribute chemicals, some of them are highly addictive so they're restricted. Same with social media.

[tcfhgj]

Ads aren't free speech, they are the absence of it, because you are paid for a preselected speech.

[Almondsetat]

That is a non sequitur.

[tcfhgj]

how so?

[Almondsetat]

>paid

If I get paid to say something I would have said anyway, is that not free speech?

>preselected

If I go to a protest with a sign that my friend made because I can't, that is not free speech?

[Analemma_]

That’s not even true in the United States (they’re ‘commercial speech’, which carries a still significant but lesser set of protections), never mind in Europe.

[Matticus_Rex]

Commercial speech rights are still part of the "free speech" bundle of 1A protections.

[deadlocked]

Not in practice.

[yxhuvud]

No. Ads are paying money to get a platform for that speech. Having a platform is in no way a basic right.

[jimnotgym]

Exactly. Companies can put their marketing guff on their own websites!

[jbxntuehineoh]

> mmmmm yes thank you daddy may I have some more?

[johnnyanmac]

If he's from the US, he's technically correct. That's the high level argument of Citizens United.

Granted, that's proven to be a horrible concept. So let's repeal that.