[a2dam]

Ads are speech. Replace all mention of "ads" in your post with "speech I don't like" and see how it reads.

[Taek]

No, ads are not the same thing as free speech at all. "Free speech" is the right to say anything to anyone *who is willing to listen*. You don't have a right to come into my home and tell me your ideas about immigration policy - though you do have a right to talk about immigration policy in other places!

The government has to guarantee that there are places for people to say things. But the government does not have to guarantee that there are places for people to say things *in my own home*. And similarly, I think most public spaces should be free from ads and other 'attention pollution'. If a company wants to write about their own product, that's fine, but they must do so in a place where other people are free to seek them out, as opposed to doing so in a way that forces the writing upon others without consent.

[psychoslave]

Also porn is related to free speech.

There is no need to be a puritan against any form of pornography to expect consensus against having most addictive/eye-catching porn ostensibly displayed everywhere in the public sphere. And it’s perfectly clear that it’s actually possible to be simultaneously fine with people watching all the porn they want in their private sphere if they are warned willing adults.

[dwb]

If you change words in a text then the meaning changes. Even if all ads are speech (I don't think they are, but I don't need to argue that), not all speech is advertisement. You can say your piece in one of many other forms that doesn't hijack my attention.

[a2dam]

I didn't say that all speech is ads, I said that ads are speech.

[delecti]

Time, place, and manner restrictions already exist on speech. I'm not an anti-ad absolutist, but it would be perfectly fine by me, and most people not financially incentivized otherwise, to place time, place, and manner restrictions on ads. I'd love a blanket ban on billboards, for example.

[nautikos1]

There needs to be a distinction between "free speech" and "bought speech".

[takeda]

The term free speech is misleading. It is really freedom of speech. I.e. someone who says something doesn't have to be afraid of prosecution because of what they said.

It isn't the speech that is being protected it is the person who says it.

Using the term "free speech" creates those weird scenarios where now we have someone argue that the US Constitution mandates ads to be everywhere.

[TexanFeller]

> Ads are speech.

Companies should have more limited speech than individuals. Nerfing the concept of “corporate personhood” will be a key part of fixing our problems IMHO.

[yesitcan]

Underaged porn is speech. Replace all mention of “underaged porn” in your post with “speech I don’t like” and see how it reads.

[a2dam]

Certainly you can see the difference between that and advertising.

[kakacik]

Nope. Something only a person benefiting from such cancer that ad business is would say that (and there are tons of those here on HN lets be honest, better half of faangs has ad-paid ultra high salaries and bonuses).

Ultimately its just another manipulation to part you with your money in other ways than you intended, nothing more and nothing less.

[PartiallyTyped]

Ads are speech until they are intrusive, until they track you across websites, until they violate your privacy.

It's one thing to have a block of HTML dedicated to ads, and another to have YOUR shit running on my machine WITHOUT my consent.

[tt24]

It is with your consent.

You continue to visit these websites.

If you don’t want their code running on your machine, simply don’t send a GET request.

[Der_Einzige]

Ads are not speech. Money is not speech. The map is not the territory.

[sumalamana]

Not all speech should be allowed.

> But who decides what is legal then?

Laws and judges.

[a2dam]

That's the case currently! What I said is why those laws and judges don't ban advertising!

[CamperBob2]

... written and appointed, respectively, by the worst politicians you can imagine.

[beowulfey]

Ah yes, a great point. We must protect the freedom to heap shit on other humans

[efreak]

So the US government can't punish you for speaking, and they can't punish someone else for speaking on your behalf. They can, however, punish you for speaking in exchange for money, speaking words you don't believe (advertising, lying). They can punish you for trying to brainwash people (the difference between advertising and propaganda is who is speaking and what they get from it, and why). They can punish you for forcing others to listen to your words (my neighbor playing music at night). They can punish you for making unfair deals. Most of this is not usually applied to private speech, but the right to free speech does not prevent it. You cannot be punished for attempting to speak in general, however there are absolutely limits.