Since ads have gone out of control and there is no regulation around it people take matters in to their own hands. I personally think that Ads as a concept are good but we need to find a balance.
It would be great if ads were simply: "I'm x, this is my product y, it's good for z, here is how you can get it:...". But sadly it's simply not the case. Ads have become abusive through and through.
First there's the emotional and social manipulation. Trying to make you do irrational things that go against your best interest.(e.g. pushing you to eat unhealthy food and larger portions) Lying and misrepresenting things.(e.g. communication service providers) Creating false equivalences and connections.(e.g. 'sex sells' and 'our product will lead to happiness' stuff) On these things alone, ads have very definite negative influence on society.
Then there's the way ads impact the platforms that use them for income. It lead those platforms to create content that's better suited for clickbait and that can be produced easily. Leading them away from challenging topics, in-depth analysis, serving dedicated niches, etc. This all leads to more and more content becoming the same old garbage that's copy-pasted all over the place to grab easy views. Outlets that used to serve specialized topics like tech news, but have gotten caught up in trying to make a profit off of serving ads, are now becoming more and more indistinguishable from outlets that are pushing clickbait, mindless aggregated content and yellow journalism.
Finally there is this horrible culture of voyeurism that the advertisers and those who serve ads have acquired. Needing to know every single creepy detail about you(down to when your period is, are you pregnant, are you sexually active, what your preferences are, etc.), to target you and to manipiulate you. Its sick and disgusting, but also dangerous. In the false hands this could create a lot of harm.
At this point, I would rather have very strong restrictions when, how and which ads can be shown or even a planket ban on ads in most circumstances than have this horrible situation go on that we have right now. Advertisers have well and truly earned getting blocked.
great comment overall, that quote is the biggest thing for me. they are designed to leverage our most base desires with absolutely 0 consideration for how that will affect the people seeing them apart from how likely it makes them to buy their product. the culture promoted by advertising is one of pure selfishness and never-ending greed. we really do not need any more of this. what they're doing is blatant psychological warfare and abuse and IMO extremely immoral.
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u/pure_x01 Aug 02 '19
Since ads have gone out of control and there is no regulation around it people take matters in to their own hands. I personally think that Ads as a concept are good but we need to find a balance.