This has been a pet issue with me for a number of years. For a long time, I heard arguments from astronomers about "light pollution" and I beleived that it was a very specific problem. I believed that it only affected astronomers, and therefore, wasn't a "real" problem. But as I learned more, I began to realize that light pollution affects both plants and animals in a negative way, and finally, I learned that a major reason why light pollution is so widespread is that people have been sold by lighting companies on the unfounded fear of criminals in the dark. As it turns out, outdoor lighting (see graph, about halfway down) usually allows more crime, rather than less.
In recent years, I've been following the proliferation of security cameras, and, as before, it didn't occur to me that the increase could actually make crime worse. Invasion of privacy issues, sure, but this article makes the claim that security cameras can actually make policing less effective.
The connection between these two issues (in my mind) is that both the increase in outdoor lighting and the increase in security cameras is fueled by an exploitation of our fears by the advertising industry. I doubt you'll find any ad copy that actually instructs consumers on how to use lights or cameras effectively, because to do so is to admit that the product can actually make the problem worse.
My grandfather was vice president of the McCann Erickson advertising company. Their motto was "Truth Well Told." But I don't believe that the Ad industry makes much effort to tell the truth these days, if they ever did.
It used to be that pharmaceuticals were only advertised to the public if they were over the counter. Prescription drugs were only advertised to doctors, ostensibly because doctors were knowledgeable enough to understand the side effects and counter indications so they could make informed decisions on what to prescribe and how to administer it. Obviously, the ad industry had found a way to circumvent these restrictions by rapid spouting of boilerplate small print at the end of the commercials. It must be working, because the commercials are getting more frequent. But is this really a safe way to disseminate information?
Of course, any solution to the problems I raise here runs into a problem: it requires that limitations be placed on free speech. But I don't believe that the framers of the first amendment intended to protect the right to lie. Where does one draw the line between legal, responsible speech, and illegal irresponsible speech? And how much legal irresponsible speech are we really willing to tolerate?
I should point out that the free speech part of this got tacked on at the end, but it occurs to me that the argument for limitations on speech would have been made more effective if I'd started with advertising cigarettes instead of outdoor lighting.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem with this is that there are all kinds of side effects of trying to restrict even irresponsible free speech. As soon as you restrict any sort of speech you open the door. And believe me, that's not a door we want to open.
Who gets to decide who's telling the truth? Who gets to evaluate the truth behind a statement? What if the statement is really vague?
We have an entire system designed to attempt to work out the intention of language that is written to be as blunt as possible: it's called the legal system. Just trying to get the correct interpretation of a statement is really hard sometimes in the English language.
So who gets to interpret the information out there and determine its factuality?
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Courts already make distinctions between advertising speech, and other types of speech. I'd love to see legislation that, in a false advertising claim, puts the burden of proof on an advertiser to show that any disputed claim in an advertisement is true. E.G. "#1 comedy on television," as advertisers use it is not a true statement because it can be reasonably interpreted to actually mean something entirely different from how it is commonly used (which is #1 in the 12-13 age bracket at 7pm on Saturdays).
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'd love to see legislation that, in a false advertising claim, puts the burden of proof on an advertiser to show that any disputed claim in an advertisement is true. E.G. "#1 comedy on television," as advertisers use it is not a true statement because it can be reasonably interpreted to actually mean something entirely different from how it is commonly used (which is #1 in the 12-13 age bracket at 7pm on Saturdays).
Wait, you want to require things not just be true, but be true under all reasonable interpretations? Sorry, but that's more than a bit absurdly totalitarian.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: The problem with this is that there are all kinds of side effects of trying to restrict even irresponsible free speech. As soon as you restrict any sort of speech you open the door. And believe me, that's not a door we want to open.
I'm not sure I agree with you. I'm not even sure I can stomach the phrase "irresponsible free speech" (assume irresponsible means harmful). There are restrictions on harmful speech, so it's already not free. It's also not the same to say that speech is not free if it's not protected by the first amendment.
So suppose advertising was not protected by the first amendment. That wouldn't mean that advertising isn't allowed, it only means that legislation could be enacted to restrict it.
With tobacco, we've been hamstrung by the 1st amendment, long after there was no reasonable claim that tobacco isn't harmful, and addictive. Despite the long history of case law that brought about restrictions on tobacco advertising, those limitations are still considered "voluntary" on the part of the tobacco industry. That's the only way we get around it. It would be much simpler to just say that tobacco is harmful and therefore, advertising it is restrictable.
quote:Who gets to decide who's telling the truth?
Take an ad that says "It's not a party without (brand of beer)." That's demonstrably untrue. Should be a no-brainer. But it's the kind of claim that is frequently made in beer commercials.
quote:I'd love to see legislation that, in a false advertising claim, puts the burden of proof on an advertiser to show that any disputed claim in an advertisement is true.
So would I. How do you suppose it would go if a parent provided Budweiser at a high school graduation and argued in court that it wouldn't have been a party without it? Could Budweiser be held liable?
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Take an ad that says "It's not a party without (brand of beer)." That's demonstrably untrue. Should be a no-brainer. But it's the kind of claim that is frequently made in beer commercials.
That sort of puffery (to use the legal term) has been part of advertising as long as advertising has existed. It isn't considered a problem because anyone who even glances at it can see it isn't true. If there's no confusion of the truth, it is hard to see why there would be any reason to ban it.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:It isn't considered a problem because anyone who even glances at it can see it isn't true.
Not true. I've heard many alcoholics make exactly that argument with a perfectly straight face. My concern here isn't that all advertising should necessarily be true, but that if it's potentially harmful, then it should be true. If puffery is a legal term for "we can get away with a lie" then I'm even more disappointed in the legal system.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: That sort of puffery (to use the legal term) has been part of advertising as long as advertising has existed.
And yet, it is demonstrably false. As is the statement I used above as an example. If you are going to be using speech to persuade someone to give you money, yes, you should be required to make only true claims when trying to convince them that they should buy your product. If you can't sell your product without lying, you probably shouldn't be selling your product.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I knew that I was doing it at the time, but I derailed my own thread in the first post by bringing up the whole free speech issue. I'm much more interested in the mechanisms by which we decide to make our problems worse.
Arthur C. Clarke's "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value" comes to mind. Essentially, intelligence gets lost in the noise, as we go about consuming and reproducing and acting, as a species, about as intelligent as yeast.
The two examples above are just that... examples. Feel free to add your own.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
One of the points of the movie is that certain kinds of lies might actually make life better. However, I'm not convinced that the sort of lies we see in advertising are of that sort. (The movie didn't really focus on this either, it was just a feature of the world that was funny enough to get a couple of moments in the film.)
What if Coke ads actually consisted of "this is some sugary, otherwise non-nutritive liquid that we'd like for you to buy because it makes us rich, even though it's bad for your teeth and your health?" Would such a standard just be too depressing (economically)?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
