>Ads are speech.
replyNo, 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.
Ads aren't free speech, they are the absence of it, because you are paid for a preselected speech.
replyWe already ban tobacco ads on tv (in the us) is their freedom of speech violated?
replyI don’t think you need to count companies being able to put any message out there as free speech.
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.
replyCommercial speech rights are still part of the "free speech" bundle of 1A protections.
reply> mmmmm yes thank you daddy may I have some more?
replyIf he's from the US, he's technically correct. That's the high level argument of Citizens United.
replyGranted, that's proven to be a horrible concept. So let's repeal that.