Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#141

Post by jMyles » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #80

jMyles wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is dangerously close to becoming a regulated, or more regulated, industry You're absolutely right. And this is an easy, almost childishly obvious end-around to get at free speech. If speech is "political speech," then it is subject regulation suite A. If it is "advertising", then it is subject to regulation suite B. If it is "legal or medical advice," on and on. Until there are no spaces left between the suites, an…

Neither Facebook nor Google are ""pure"" free speech zones already, or ever were, and both already have categories of advert that you're not allowed.

Oh, totally.

But I was making a different point:

I was talking about impending regulations (per GP), not about the speech permissiveness of private platforms.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#142

Post by jMyles » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #111

jMyles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not consenting adults if it's a scam Are you serious? Or is this sarcasm? If you're serious: you're welcome of course to an opinion that google is right to block scams, and / or that most cryptocurrency ads are scams. But you can't really believe that adults stop being adults, or that consent to judge the merits of, for example an ad, suddenly evaporates in the presence of a scam? Is the presence of a scam suf…

Scam = based on lies. EG I tell you that your money will be used to do X, while instead I use it to buy a new home for myself. If one is lying, the others aren't "consenting".

I think I'm reasonably capable of giving consent to a situation wherein I know I'll need to discern truth from lies. I mean, I understand there's a limit to human agency, but the mere presence of a scam in a google add isn't close to it, at least for my worldview.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#143

Post by jimjimjim » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #88

chillingeffect wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet they are digital commons with near monopolies. Should IRL streets be the only place where pure free speech is allowed? Should the entire internet be a purely corporate space with no constitutional rights permitted, only private access? If we are advised to avoid their near monopolies, should we simply wait for another corporate giant to take their place? In order to exercise our rights of free speech, must we ere…

The constitutional right is country-specific and also limited. You're not allowed to publish fraudulent stock prospectuses offline, even in America.

Good example.

The venn diagram between the free-speech-or-death people and the market-will-decide people is often very overlapped but your example is a concrete existing example where you COULD publish a false prospectus as an expression of your free speech but you would find yourself very quickly more poor and more incarcerated.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#144

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

che_shirecat wrote: post #118

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be one thing if they followed a strict rule such as "we will block ads that present unrealistic claims" and then applied that rule equally across all advertisers. But the concern is they are singleing out one particular technology. That will harm those cryptocurrency business which aren't making claims about certain percentage of returns, thereby making it hard for a potential new novel use of cryptocurrency…

novel uses of cryptocurrency will almost inevitably gain traction because of their worth, especially considering how hot the market is right now with whales willing to throw ETH/BTC at anything that has a tiny chance to moon. how would Google enforce a rule like "we will block ads that present unrealistic claims?" who defines unrealistic? if you left that definition up to me 99% of the ERC-20 token based startups out…

How about instead of "unrealistic claims" simply prohibit claims about unproven future monetary performance of an asset?

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#145

Post by rhizome » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #133

rhizome wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean what ads have I been hungry to see, but mean old Google keeps them away from my eyes? None.

So you are implying that Google only has control over ads?

Please don't try to change the subject.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#146

Post by mirimir » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 11:43 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #26

mirimir wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can sue anybody about anything. But getting very far vs Google probably takes some resources. And even with resources, liability over ad publishing seems iffy. But IANAL.

Sure, but the question is, would they deserve to win because Google was at least partially to blame for the deceitful ad? Because if so, Google's right not to show the ad.

I consider all ads to be at least somewhat deceitful. Because they are, almost by definition, biased. They're a form of propaganda. And that's not exaggeration. Look at the history, if you will.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#147

Post by candu » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

sli wrote: post #138

candu wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well: "very little research has been done in people on the health effects of acai products." [1] In general, health supplements, miracle berries, etc. sit on dubious scientific ground: many have either not been extensively studied, or have been studied and shown to have no discernible effect (good or bad). The assertion here is not that açaí itself is bad per se, but that it is marketed as being healthy with little o…

> miracle berries Is this commonly used to refer to acai berries? The only "miracle berry" I know of[1] is named for the effect on perception of flavor caused by the chemical miraculin, which is produced by the berry. They're also extremely fun to introduce to people who have never tried them before, and I highly recommend them for your next party. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum

Ah, fair. I was using it here as more of a general term for all berries caught under the umbrella of various health crazes (antioxidants, etc.), but forgot about this berry (which, as you say, is a lot of fun to play around with).

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#148

Post by chillingeffect » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #88

chillingeffect wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet they are digital commons with near monopolies. Should IRL streets be the only place where pure free speech is allowed? Should the entire internet be a purely corporate space with no constitutional rights permitted, only private access? If we are advised to avoid their near monopolies, should we simply wait for another corporate giant to take their place? In order to exercise our rights of free speech, must we ere…

The constitutional right is country-specific and also limited. You're not allowed to publish fraudulent stock prospectuses offline, even in America.

I appreciate your adhering to the letter of the law, but I'm clearly speaking about ideals. In most democracies, laws are not the final world. We have the ability to change the laws based on our ideals as life evolves.

At one time, we were quite free in many countries, but large corporations have put strangleholds on free speech, a fact so well-documented I'm not compelled to source it here.

W/r/t your non-sequitor on fradulent stock prospectuses, that's moving the goalposts quite a bit from cryptocurrency advertising. It's so far afield, I'm struggling to understand why you included it in this discussion, but out of respect for you, I'm attempting to connect it to the previous ideas about cryptocurrency offerings. It seems you're implying cryptocurrency advertising is, by definition, fraud? Is that the case? Do you care to elucidate?

I posted my open questions because we should be thinking about what we want for societies around the world, not merely conforming to legal precedents set by corporate entities.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#149

Post by chillingeffect » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

jimjimjim wrote: post #143

pjc50 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitutional right is country-specific and also limited. You're not allowed to publish fraudulent stock prospectuses offline, even in America.

Good example. The venn diagram between the free-speech-or-death people and the market-will-decide people is often very overlapped but your example is a concrete existing example where you COULD publish a false prospectus as an expression of your free speech but you would find yourself very quickly more poor and more incarcerated.

But in what way is banning all cryptocurrency-related advertising equivalent to publishing false prospectuses? It's not. There are infinite legitimate uses of advertising w/r/t cryptocurrency.

I agree we should disallow and punish publishing false prospectuses, but I disagree that cryptocurrency advertising should be completely banned from google. I think it's an overreach of monopolistic power.

As a corporate entity, google has too much power to choose what competing businesses succeed, and social progress spreads. I don't even own or have any interest but passing in cryptocurrency, but I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to make their businesses, subject of course to financial regulations.

Re: Google will ban all cryptocurrency-related advertising

#150

Post by wepple » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

neals wrote: post #83

wepple wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchain != Cryptocurrency

No, I know, just questioning where the line is.

Yeah that’s a good question. Reading between the lines of that article, I’d guess they’re worried about the damage caused by people taking regular folks money, which would surely exclude blockchain consultancies. That’s based on a giant assumption that their filtering can spot the difference effectively.