I wonder what Banksy thinks of online advertising, which goes far beyond "taking the piss".
At its best, your personal data is harvested and traded behind your back to tailor ads specifically for your demographic—and increasingly for you personally—and deliver them when you're most vulnerable.
At its worst, it is all of the above, plus used by anyone who wants to influence how you think about political and social issues, ultimately corrupting democratic processes and destabilizing governments. It is the perfect medium for propaganda.
In either case it is the most insidious form of psychological manipulation we've ever invented. I hope that we eventually collectively sober up about the ways this is harming our societies, and heavily regulate, if not outright ban it. The advertising industry has gone far beyond just promoting a product, and it needs to stop.
I would hope all advertising (including online) isn't completely banned. It is useful at times for learning about products. But that's all it should really do: promote products (or services), and stop using psychological manipulation techniques and being such a cancer on society.
50+ years ago, the idea of advertisers harvesting your personal data and trading it behind your back to tailor ads for you was completely alien.
50+ years ago we were being marketed cigarettes as "Torches of Freedom", promoted by doctors and cartoon characters. We rightfully banned these practices in most of the world because of the product they were advertising, but the deception and manipulation have been an industry staple, pioneered by Edward Bernays a century ago. The internet is simply a new tool they can use to make their work more sophisticated than ever before.
It has also made a lot of people very rich, so I doubt that the advertising industry will accept devolving to a state before psychological manipulation became the norm, and sacrifice billions of dollars worth of revenue. Governments are unlikely to regulate it to that point either, given their symbiotic relationship.
This banning of billboards is a good step, but the real problems are online.
There's really no easy black-and-white answer to this problem I think. While advertising cigarettes with cartoon characters to get kids interested is obviously disgusting, or having doctors promote them, advertising has its place. Remember "Computer Shopper", the huge magazine back in the 80s/90s where the ads were really the main reason to buy it? Those ads were how people back then bought computer components, because there was no other way of learning what was for sale from where, and how much it cost. Of course, the internet (which Computer Shopper helped make popular and accessible) put the magazine out of business eventually, but before the internet revolutionized communications (including advertising), ads like those were essential if you wanted to find products that weren't available in your local retail stores, or were only available at inflated prices.
It'd be nice if there was some kind of advertising industry code of ethics, but I can't imagine how this would develop, since the people in today's ad industry are obviously a bunch of con artists and sociopaths who lack any ethical standards at all.
I think consent is key. With "Computer Shopper", we gave our consent by picking-up the magazine and reading it. With Google/Bing/etc, we give it by choosing their search. With streaming, we give it by logging-in and watching whatever garbage they have on offer. But with billboards, subway placards, radios and televisions running in public spaces, etc... there is no consent, so those are more like rape.
I disagree that ads bundled with other services imply consent. The EU got it right with the GDPR that consent is meaningless if it is not freely given, meaning not giving consent must have zero negative consequences. It is too easy to manipulate people to act against their own interest by just dangling a carrot in front of them.
I can learn about products I am interested in by enthusiasts of certain areas, comparison tests, searching the web, friends recommendations, entities that collect news of a specific area, Hackernews and other forums, conferences, events (physical or digital) that are just for companies presenting their products in a certain area.
So I don't need to have unasked ads shoved into my face to get to know products I "need" or desire.
At its best, your personal data is harvested and traded behind your back to tailor ads specifically for your demographic—and increasingly for you personally—and deliver them when you're most vulnerable.
At its worst, it is all of the above, plus used by anyone who wants to influence how you think about political and social issues, ultimately corrupting democratic processes and destabilizing governments. It is the perfect medium for propaganda.
In either case it is the most insidious form of psychological manipulation we've ever invented. I hope that we eventually collectively sober up about the ways this is harming our societies, and heavily regulate, if not outright ban it. The advertising industry has gone far beyond just promoting a product, and it needs to stop.