> “The overall concept lacks clarity.” “It is unclear why certain examples are included, who the ‘speaker’ represents, and the role of individuals depicted in the car.”
> "Referencing topics such as: Paedophiles, Rapists, Murderers, Enemies of the state, Journalists, Refugees, Controversial opinions, People’s bedrooms, Police officers, Children’s headsets … is inappropriate and irrelevant to the average consumer’s experience with a VPN."
Maybe it's just from an American perspective, but this is absolutely wild to me. Even just the concept of a government-mandated pre-approval body for advertisement seems like a completely pants-on-head concept [1].
I think the American First Amendment would obliterate this government body and probably the whole institution if it was ever tried.
[1] Yes the FCC has limited authority after-the-fact to impose fines for things like indecency.
I’ve had ads taken off the TV for being clearly misleading (anyone can raise a complaint to the ASA - the Advertising Standards Agency).
There is also industry self-regulation through bodies like the German Advertising Standards Council, which reviews complaints and can issue public reprimands.
So the system is not "you must get permission before speaking," but rather "you are free to publish, but you are accountable if you violate clear legal standards."
I’m also skeptical of pre-approval mechanisms in principle. I think the German mechanism works really well.
You can’t say free Palestine or refer to murder on much social media, yet companies are free to lie in advertising or sue to prevent criticism.
When I compare both countries both are lacking but neither seems more free than the other. Americans seem not to understand how little access to free speech they have.
I'm sure the process allows for any citizen to review all of the rejected material in full, right? And you've done your part to do that, right? You take responsibility for the restrictions you want, right?
- Ricky Gervais' "Welcome to London, I hope you bought your stab vest"
- An athletic girl advertising protein powder.
We're also rejected because someone determind that poking fun at London crime and conventionally attractive women were offensive.
In America there's definitely things you're not allowed to put on TV. Obviously you can't just put hardcore porn on, but you also aren't allowed to directly lie. Though I'm sure what the standards are for lying are different. There's laws against false advertising, libel, and so on.
But pre-approved is very different. And honestly, if you're making calls to get misleading ads taken off TV then is the pre-approved system even working? How do you know they're not just filtering out things they don't like? It's a pretty difficult type of restriction on speech.
As an example, are they preventing ads running talking about the UK's relationship to Epstein? Or calls to release their files? Every country has files, not just the US. Given the response to Mullvad I'd assume you couldn't place those types of ads on TV.
Not exactly what happened here is it?
A private company which somehow gets to approve ads rejected an advert complaining about a dystopian lack of privacy under a government that is actively trying to kill off privacy.
Do US TV networks have any rules about what can be shown in ads? Because I somewhat doubt that a company could submit whatever they want and the network has to air it.
They're a private company functioning as industry self-regulation, not a government department.
Broadcasters sign up to the code, Clearcast pre-clears ads against the code.
Ofcom is the regulator in this space, Clearcast appears to be an industry effort to pre-empt Ofcom by making sure things comply before they've gone out. Broadcasters want Clearcast's seal of approval before broadcast so they know they're OK to broadcast it.
Entirely private sector, I'm not sure there's a lot that's wild about it.
It is 100% government mandated censorship.
What's actually illegal in law to broadcast is very different from what you practically cant due to the theoretically voluntary codes. Even that guidance is broad but hard to argue with "Advertisements must contain nothing that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18." No reasonable person would argue you should be allowed to do that.
Then when you add in the ability to advertise prescription drugs?
Well, what could go wrong?
It's also nigh-impossible for a libel suit to succeed. And the government can't stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
You can make strong arguments either way, but at the very least you have to acknowledge that it's not all downsides.
But it's so much better than these alternatives.
(wait until the Americans understand what the rules for political TV broadcasts are in the UK, they will absolutely lose their minds. And the spending rules. And how little money is involved in UK elections.)
There's more serious concerns about UK libel law, and things like the proscription of Palestine Action, but generally I would say that if what you have to say is both true and important you can get your message across. Despite the newspapers and broadcasters.
Now that we've all gone through a Discord allergy phase I wonder where all that has really landed.
This is not a government body, Ofcom is the relevant government body, like the US has the FCC, which you are aware of. The FCC has broadcasting rules. Your supreme court upheld their ability to issue sanctions for violations. This has lead to broad self-censorship by US broadcasters in much the same way the UK has Clearcast, to the point that censorship of stuff like swearwords is a recognizable trait of quite a few TV shows exported from the US. In the past year there have been multiple cases of censorship in response to threats from the FCC and other government bodies, much worse situations than banning an ad. The first amendment has done nothing to stop this.
I'm not here to defend the UK, they have some extremely scary laws on the books, but the US is really not notably different on this front.
> TfL owns the advertising spaces and maintains its own Advertising Policy, which sets stricter standards than general UK advertising rules (enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, or ASA, and the Committees of Advertising Practice, CAP). All ads must comply with both the ASA/CAP codes and TfL's specific guidelines, which cover issues like offence, sexual content, violence, political advertising, health claims, and more (e.g., restrictions on high-fat/sugar/salt food ads since 2019).
It would be very strange for them to e.g censor certain kinds of drug references in the programmes they produce and air, but then permit them in adverts, no?
Across all of these, if any government or pseudo government body attempts to restrict advertising because of the content, they will get sued. Any advertiser making materially false claims will likewise also get sued.
I doubt there is any conspiracy or global cooperation, I think it's just monkey see monkey do.
British perspective: the volume of your ads, the quickly spoken disclaimer, and the 'look at this cool prescription drug - ask your doctor!' are completely knickers-on-head.
Imagine a world where the “AI” peddlers would be forced to make realistic claims about their “product” instead of the American advertising style lies were being spammed with everywhere…
(slightly ambiguous conclusion that none of them have prevailed in court, but the laws can still be used to intimidate food critics)
I think this is exactly the kind of thing Trump is trying to slow walk us into while everyone is distracted by his war in Iran.
First consolidate the networks into the hands of a few loyal supporters (you don’t need a body to ban a commercial The networks refuse to air), then use the FCC to clean up the remaining opposition.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-fccs-equal...
Article 11 - Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/11-freedom-expre...
The link above clarifies that this article corresponds to article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (a legal document of the Council of Europe, a different body than the EU, whose members are a strict subset of the members of the CoE). Article 10 delimits restrictions to the right of expression, as follows:
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
And as the article points out, those restrictions apply to article 11 freedoms also, acting as an upper bound:
Pursuant to Article 52(3) of the Charter, the meaning and scope of this right are the same as those guaranteed by the ECHR. The limitations which may be imposed on it may therefore not exceed those provided for in Article 10(2) of the Convention, without prejudice to any restrictions which Community competition law may impose on Member States' right to introduce the licensing arrangements referred to in the third sentence of Article 10(1) of the ECHR.
In other words, yes, there is freedom of "speech", a.k.a expression, in the EU and it, and its limits, are enshrined in law.
I hate to make assumptions but there are a few public figures from the US that have argued that "Europe" has no freedom of speech like the brave US, like Paul Graham and Elon Musk, but they're talking out of their backsides.
https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html?q=mull...
This smacks of viral campaign to me.
[0]: https://cybernews.com/news/and-then-mullvads-anti-surveillan...
you can see what mullvad, the company selling a product here, say what the reasoning was.
As i say, smacks of marketing campaign. Did clearcast give the marketing team a gift, or did the marketing team invent it? All we have is Mullvads word, but my word they have been running an extensive campaign in london for a while now.
Step 1: cryptically warn people that their rights are under attack.
Step 2: tell people that you have been banned from saying any more.
Step 3: Conveniently make no mention of the fact that this highly controversial 'banned' ad is absolutely watchable, in the UK, on youtube, with links to it from traditional media adverts.
> way they gave a real gift to the marketing team
A gift to us in how dishonest marketing can be, yeah.
> "irrelevant to the average consumer’s experience with a VPN"
Clearcast doesn't like snake oil, it'd seem.
I worked on the set of an electric shaver commercial once. I’m wouldn’t say out loud that the production team were up themselves, but in addition to the regular crew there was a second director on set making a “making of” documentary about the production process. For a shaver commercial.
It is no wonder to me that police procedurals are the most popular genre of TV shows in UK by quite a margin. They really are high-quality, but it does really feel like thinly-veiled propaganda (often commissioned by the BBC) portraying the State and police as the good guys in their endless quest against the baddies. Thank god there are CCTVs at every corner keeping the peace!
During WW2 that was used by the Ministry of Information, and it inspired Orwell's description for the building of the Ministry of Truth. His wife Eileen worked in the building for the Censorship Department.
>Mass Surveillance is a slippery slope. It does not belong in Free and Open Societies.
I had a minor panic/WTF moment when I saw the submission saying : "Streets of London [video] (youtube.com)".
(not sure what are the unwritten rules of self-promotion here, but hopefully providing a link in a sub-comment instead of the comment itself makes it okay-ish?)
I am a Proton user now, mostly because I finally realized VPN came with the email service I was already paying for. No complaints.
I can't use Mullvad for several banks in the UK with IPv4 - if I switch to IPv6 in the app settings I sometimes can, but often I have to just disable it completely...
I can't use Youtube anonymously (i.e. without logging in) within the last month or so either, as Youtube very often won't play content due to my IP as well...
I saw the ads saying "and then?" and still didnt get it.
I like the product but i think their ad campaigns suck. If they want exposure and controversy i think they should run adverts to kill new proposed laws, target privacy hating politicians, etc.
But a general sense of paranoia comes through quite strongly.
And how much "surveillance" does a VPN prevent anyway? This is a regulatory & legislative problem and I don't see how any public VPN is part of the solution.
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/removing-the-support-for-forward...
1. The government cannot ban any speech in advance of publication (eg verbally making the statement; or airing; or publishing etc).
2. If proven in Court that the statement maker: (a) knew the statement was false; (b) made the statement for the purpose of influencing public opinion regarding a law or government policy or election; or for the purpose of marketing a product for sale to the public; then the penalty upon conviction is...:
here is the secret sauce: super severe penalty such as: imprisonment without chance of parole or pardon for 10 years unless you are an elected official or candidate for office, in which event life in prison; or loss of 50% of your assets; or something similar
In other words, keep freedom of speech but if you are intentionally lying to the public for the purpose of impacting government affairs or the sale of a product - then you are going to suffer an incredibly punitive penalty.
Changing your acc number every other month and paying anonymously is much easier on Mullvad than on the ISP level. You can also get multiple people on the number very easily. And Mullvad is likely an entity outside of your home country, hence more difficult to coerce than your ISP.
In my eyes ISPs are compromised by default so the aim is to guard against them, if Mullvad is also as compromised it's more difficult for them to track me across account numbers and, even if they do, my data is then in another country, which worries me less than it being local since I'm not important enough to warrant international action.
This is not true in the EU or for the signatories of the Lugano Convention (the EU, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway). Mullvad is very explicit that they'll abide by all EU laws. For instance, see the e-Evidence Regulation specifically written for "network-based services" like "proxy services": https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
> Mullvad is also as compromised it's more difficult for them to track me across account numbers
That's your assumption, not an assertion Mullvad makes?
> even if they do, my data is then in another country, which worries me less than it being local
There exists international treaties on intel sharing (including for "cyber") at every level: The UN, The European Council, the EU, the NATO states, and so on.
> I'm not important enough to warrant international action
Your government can demand action of other governments and businesses via various treaties it may have in place. Mullvad, since it says it'll abide by all EU / Swedish laws, is not a hurdle for your local LEA you think it might be.
For the universal right to choose whether or not to block ads and trackers,
Mullvad VPN
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/how-set-ad-blocking-our-app / https://archive.vn/cfyPe
In theory they could still broadcast it if they wanted to, but in general if it fails their checks, they won't.
It's not so much permission as risk evaluation.
Isn’t the thing that actually stops you from doing this just an ad-hoc, informally specified and bug-ridden implementation of Clearcast?
You may be thinking of defamation or fraud, both of which require more than lying.
Yeah turns out marketing people lie and stretch the truth.
(there are perhaps valid questions about UK broadcasting restrictions, but since the internet this has become much, much less important. All the really absurd stuff like Gerry Adams lies in the 20th century)
It appears to be established in law that Clearcast is an assistance service, and approval doesn't seem to be sufficient or necessary by law to ensure advertising is legal. It establishes risk, rather than making a legal finding.
If Mullvad's ad was 'banned' by Clearcast, what happened is that their ad didn't meet the standards that the industry has set for itself and the broadcasters didn't want to touch it.
(edit - does this make it 'better'? I don't know. It seems to me a bit like the situation in the US with HOAs, which heavily restrict what you can and can't do with your property, but aren't exactly government either. But I favour accuracy over emotion when talking about this stuff, which is why I wanted to point out the actual structure of the system here.)
Not remotely the same as a cabal of media conglomerates getting together to agree on their own rules about how they are going to interpret and enforce government-mandated censorship in society.
Not allowing advertisers to lie to advertise their product is I think not a kind of "censorship" one really needs to be worried about. They're free to advertise their product otherwise, they're just not free to lie to do it.
I feel silly making this elementary point, but freedoms can't ever be absolute in a society of more than one humans. Even in the US I bet you're free to drive, but you're not free to drive drunk. You're free to have sexual relations, but not with a minor. You're free to walk anywhere you like but not in other peoples' property and not on the streets with the cars (which btw is perfectly fine in Europe and it's rules about jaywalking that are "pants on head" for us).
These are rules. Societies have rules. They should have them. There's no problem with that.
And now my 16-year old self is very disappointed that I've grown up to be a conservative, establishmentarian fossil.
___________
[1] Coincidence. We're not all called something-akis.
The language of hate coming straight from the front bench or most important ministers, the harassment of the vulnerable and the utter evisceration of the right to assembly and free speech.
Maybe you heard of the Hyde Park - it has this place called Speaker's corner where free speech open-air public speaking, debate and discussions are allowed. It's dated to 1800's during the protests re: administration.
Sounds wild, right?
And you wouldn't be even half right.
A man holding an empty placard during the protest was threatened with arrest.
Several people were jailed for attending a zoom call (planning a nonviolent protest) for several years each. Almost 100 people were jailed for protesting the Genocide and the illegal proscribing of the protest group.
You read that right: if you were on the protest encouraging a genocide, you would be free to walk the street. If you were to protest killing entire families, targeting health workers and sniping children, you'd end up in prison.
Few years ago a man was detained for shouting "not my king!".
And this is far from all.
We're catching up
> Step 1: cryptically warn people that their rights are under attack.
They are, UK is heavy surveillance, there is an article on Wikipedia dedicated just to this subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
> Step 2: tell people that you have been banned from saying any more.
They said their ad is "banned from TV" because they offer a way to circumvent internet surveillance.
> Step 3: Conveniently make no mention of the fact that this highly controversial 'banned' ad is absolutely watchable, in the UK, on youtube, with links to it from traditional media adverts.
Because it is about TV... what does YouTube have to do with this? It says on the damn Ad "Banned on TV".
You might as well argue that it's better for visa to regulate the financial sector "because you wouldnt want the banks doing it individually".
Or that you should be happy with a punch in the face because a kick in the teeth is worse.
How "free" is your freedom of speech or expression if everything can be an exception?
Vague Hate speech laws alone can utterly remove any of those "human rights". In Germany and the UK people get charged for jokes or sarcastically criticizing politicians all the time. That is not free speech or even free expression regardless how much you want to cope to own musk or whoever the news told you to hate this week.
No but nice strawman straight out out of the eu oligarch handbook. Threats and calls to violence are already a crime even in the US and rightfully so.
10 seconds of research would show you criticism and jokes will get you prosecuted and raided:
https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/11/german-police-raid-mans-ho...
https://www.mainzer-medieninstitut.de/erfolglose-verfassungs...
Looking forward to your on topic justification.
The environment in the EU and the UK is also very different in terms of freedom of speech. In the UK for example I've kept tabs on people being put in jail for completely ludicrous reasons, like a kid who was accused of planning a Sandy Hook - like attack because he had a backpack with batteries, stones and ziplocks in it, and a young woman who was put in jail for writing poetry, with themes interpreted as terrorist sympathy. Unfortunately my bookmarks are on my other computer and I can't access them now and a search online only brings up more current cases that I don't know much about because I haven't looked into them yet, so I'll have to ask you to just have to believe me about that.
On the other hand you can find plenty of information about Drill music used as evidence in criminal trials, which is also a form of criminalisation of expression that should be banned under both the EU and CoE laws:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-600703...
Then again there is the appalling treatment of climate activists and anti-war protesters in the UK, like for example the recent proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation and the arrest of hundreds of its supporters that followed. But I believe that protesting e.g. the carnage in Palestine is not treated much better in Germany or France.
The important thing to keep in mind however is that all of that is the result of authorities overstepping bounds and claiming for themselves powers that they don't have, which happens in such freedom of speech-loving countries like the US even more often. The fact of the matter is that the law of the land protects freedom of expression and we do not live in some dystopian dictatorship where you're bundled up if you so much as dare to make a squeak about the government, or the authorities.
Using a banned ad to claim otherwise is simply disingenuous.
Oh, and also Paul Graham.
Several hundred people actually.
To be clear, you could protest the genocide as much as you wanted, what you couldn't do was support the specific group "Palestine Action" who had some members who had committed (IMHO) some property crimes against defence contractors which the government decided to classify as terrorism and proscribe the whole group. When thousands of people continued to support the group, the police continued to arrest them by the hundred. It's a clusterfuck
Thankfully the UK government has recently lost its court battle on the proscription of Palestine Action, though there are ongoing hearings as to what happens next with all the people who were arrested and who are now awaiting a court date on (presumably) terrorism charges.
So this -
> If you were to protest killing entire families, targeting health workers and sniping children, you'd end up in prison.
Is not quite right. Or quite wrong.
The curtailment of the right to protest is worrying in all sorts of places. This specific case is muddied by the direct-action wing of a specific organisation.
It is possible to restrict one without the other. The UK, can quite easily stop an advert from saying things like:
>> A paid-for Meta ad and a website listing for an online clothing company misleadingly claimed they were established and owned by armed forces veterans and that they donated a share of profits to PTSD support organisations.
And still allow The Guardian to run a campaign on shadowy organisations funding politics.
Conflating them is done, i feel by those who run companies... i dunno, like VPN's, for the purposes of viral marketing and generating outrage.
That's the thing: the idea that one must be allowed. No; you publish it, and the most the government can do is stop you from repeating it and punish you for having done so.
Note that I'm not defending the US system as perfect, or even necessarily good in all places and at all times. But it is a system that has benefits.
> the most the government can do is stop you from repeating it and punish you for having done so.
Yes - and, because of this, Clearcast exists with a sort of "TSA pre-clear" role. If Clearcast pass it, it's very unlikely to result in subsequent legal action.
TV stations are in principle free to broadcast unrestricted ads live and deal with the consequences. Obviously, they have no interest in doing that.
Soooo.... if I approach a US tv network with an ad that explicitly shows naked people doing cocaine, and carries the message that drugs are amazing, and ask for it to be scheduled during the kids tv peak slot, the networks are going to say "Hey, cool, yeah we'll do that"?
This seems very unlikely to me. It seems much more likely their internal compliance departments will look at it and say "Nope". So much for "you publish it".
Because that's basically what's happened here - the UK networks have outsourced checks on advertising to a third party they own, which itself gets its advertising code of conduct from an industry association the networks are part of. The third party makes decisions about whether an ad is OK. If it's not OK then the networks won't usually want to air it.
Yet. Give this administration a little time and they’ll solve that problem too.
(They’ve already addressed it to some degree by intimidating the press.)
Everything is possible, of course, but in no world is it <= difficult to get information out of an entity outside your borders. A police officer can go to my local ISP's office and ask to see my logs. If he gets lucky, he gets them, otherwise his escalation path is smaller. If he wants to do that to Mullvad he has to start some process that goes through multiple people and takes a lot more time. Additionally, by the time he reaches Mullvad he probably has my ISP logs.
> That's your assumption, not an assertion Mullvad makes?
IDK what they have to say about it, but the ISP has a hardware line to my home, my name on a contract and recurring card payments. Mullvad has some money with no clear source and an ID with 3-4 people on it that jump ID every other month. I can't change my ISP every other month so one has a single big ass log for my home in a folder with my name on it and my payments while the other has multiple logs they have to bring together and no name on the payments.
They can absolutely parse things and follow me across IDs to put me in a big log and maybe do some data magic to tie it to my person but:
1- It's extra work for them to get to the ISP starting point
2- That starting point is actually still worse since possible mistakes in that process can be argued in court.
So, VPNs do not protect against surveillance. Both of us agree.
> some data magic
The EU e-Evidence Regulation requires this of EU & EFTA based providers. Make what you will.
Instead, fight misinformation with superior information.
But that is still missing the point. I said that the US way isn’t all downsides. Curiosly enough, I haven’t seen a reply (but I might miss some downstream) that acknowledges this. I’m not a moron. The US way isn’t the most perfect bestest ever with no faults. If you want to argue that there is nothing redeeming about the First Amendment, then do so. But unless you are prepared to do that, don’t act like it has no benefits.
How does linking similar articles help demonstrate that? That doesn't seem like very strong (counter?)evidence.
I don't even disagree with the post, I just don't like seeing shallow dismissals where someone could've actually put effort in to make a point. So I did the same.
None of this is unique to the UK. I'm old enough to remember 24, the show that whitewashed torture while people were getting renditioned by the CIA.
I'd be more surprised if there was a country where this kind of thing didn't happen.
I don't support that organisation, but I support the right not to be banned from walking in protest, in a pre policing move.
You can bet the static protest people will be kettled too as a defensive measure. I don't support frightening makeshift imprisonment in the street.
I don't support the requirement to get permission from the police to walk in protest either
Tell me: how much change you think you can effect with a few people stood static, self policing your words as not to cause offence to anyone, and then likely kettled by the police? Tell me that isn't banning protest
You're basically permitted to stand silent with a totally inoffensive sign (offensive or potentially to absolutely nobody) in a very small group that attracts no attention
We don't see this as censorship, it's a safeguard against an ideology that destroyed democracy.
I can say that the moon is made of cheese, and if you punish me for doing so, you’re engaging in censorship, despite my claim being untrue.
You avoid having companies, who can swallow the bill, making whatever claims they like without having to much to worry about other than a slap on the wrist - Their claims are already out. J&J, P&G, Unilever et al - you may trust them to do the right thing, i don't.
Would the UK government actually stop any of these advertisers? It seems more likely they would stop people critcising the UK government.
Although given Brexit I’d question how useful the ASA actually is. It seems Russian funded politicians were free to spew endless lies at the average citizen with no repercussions.
The thread running through all these cases is that prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights. A criminal penalty or a judgment in a defamation case is subject to the whole panoply of protections afforded by deferring the impact of the judgment until all avenues of appellate review have been exhausted. Only after judgment has become final, correct or otherwise, does the law's sanction become fully operative.
A prior restraint, by contrast and by definition, has an immediate and irreversible sanction. If it can be said that a threat of criminal or civil sanctions after publication "chills" speech, prior restraint "freezes" it at least for the time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_restraint#Judicial_view
Free speech isn't about saying whatever you want without consequence.
And this is a bloody ad on the TV.
What you can't do is shout it in a way that makes people believe there is legitimate danger AND your actions cause subsequent panic.
The crime isn't so much about the speech as it is about the damage that that speech causes.
It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.
The decisive factor is whether the joke attacks the ideology or reinforces it. So if a comedian in Berlin says "the Holocaust didn’t happen" as a punchline, and it comes across as actual denial or trivialization, that can be illegal.
Carlsbergs tag line is still "probably the best beer in the world" despite it probably being not.
So the comparison works.
> And can we agree that there are lies that companies tell on adverts that can cause damage?
> Carlsbergs tag line is still "probably the best beer in the world" despite it probably being not.
Even if they remove "probably" they could still get away with it because it isn't going to be believable and I doubt you could show damage. Just in the same way so many cafes have "Best coffee in X" and how frequently you see mugs like "Best Dad in the world." No one is getting sued over those because they aren't believable. I agree they're deceptive and in bad taste, but I think if you take some time to sit down and think about it you'll realize that to make statements like those illegal you're going to have a lot of unintended consequences.
You responded pointing out it has to be believable, ie real harm done.
I brought it back full circle showing that adverts can 'lie' if it isn't believable.
I am pointing out you are reinforcing my original point, not detracting from it.