Advertising is a parasitic force on society. It sucks up your attention with a willful intention to change your purchasing behaviour, often knowing that the new behavior is worse for you.

If ads were merely about being informative, they would be boring. But ads want to manipulate, so they have to be flashy and appeal to your emotions.

They pollute your mental headspace, and have no place in a healthy society.

Let's ban billboards. And then let's follow that up with a general purpose ban on paid advertisement.

>intention to change your purchasing behaviour, often knowing that the new behavior is worse for you.

I think the latter part of that is a huge jump. How is seeing a billboard for a plumber promoting bad behavior?

They said "often", not "always".

Even then, you've probably not picked the best plumber this way.

Well, in between step 1 ("ban billboards") and step 3 ("ban advertisement") you'd need step 2 ("repeal the First Amendment of the United States Constitution"). Let me know how that goes!

They're banned in 4 US states already, with seemingly no infringement on the 1st Amendment.

Legally speaking, the validity of banning billboards tends to be evaluated based on the Central Hudson test. More practically, there's numerous limitations to commercial speech... for example, you can't blare an audio ad from your rooftop.

Billboards? Banning billboards is fine by me. Banning all advertising is unconstitutional.

Banning targeted advertising probably wouldn't be.

Step three seemed to pass First Amendment muster for cigarette companies.

Commercial speech has limits, even as the first amendment is interpreted today. Well, for now at least.

>Well, in between step 1 ("ban billboards") and step 3 ("ban advertisement") you'd need step 2 ("repeal the First Amendment of the United States Constitution"). Let me know how that goes!

For most of US history, Commercial speech was not afforded full free speech rights. Nor does it currently enjoy them, although it is more protected than it used to be[0]:

   Commercial speech, as the Supreme Court iterated in Valentine v. Chrestensen 
   (1942)[1], had historically not been viewed as protected under the First 
   Amendment. This category of expression, which includes commercial 
   advertising, promises, and solicitations, had been subject to significant 
   regulation to protect consumers and prevent fraud. Beginning in the 1970s, 
   however, the Supreme Court gradually recognized this type of speech as 
   deserving some First Amendment protection.

As such, it wouldn't require repealing anything. Just reinterpreting how the First Amendment applies (or not) to commercial speech. And given the wholesale tossing out of precedent by recent SCOTUS personnel, it's certainly possible (albeit unlikely -- and more's the pity -- in this configuration) for them to do so.

[0] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/commercial-speech/

[1] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/valentine-v-chresten...

I grew up in Alaska which has a billboard ban. And then I went to Florida for university, and while there was a lot of culture shock I really think that the in your face billboards everywhere where the biggest bit.

Huge aggressive grabs for attention when you really should be paying attention to the road really should not be allowed.

So fascinating. I’ve grown up on the east coast and it never even occurred to me as a possibility until a HN thread yesterday.

Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont are way ahead of the rest of the country on this, that’s for sure.

Similar here but sort of the opposite, grew up with advertising and I didn't think it could possibly get worse. Then I visited Florida for the first time in a long time and I saw a floating ad on the water. Killed the trip entirely for me.

A less extreme version of this other recent post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269

Billboards are banned where I live and it's great. It's interesting that this post says that where the author lives "someone can put up a 48-foot advertisement wherever they want". From other things I read I got the impression that in some (maybe many) cities a reason they're not banned is because they provide revenue, since many are on land like road medians that are controlled by local government. I'm not sure to what extent the designs themselves are reviewed but the ability to erect a billboard is regulated in such cases.

They are banned here in Vermont, and it’s great. Going across the border to New York or Massachusetts is always a shock. They’re just so ugly.

Sopot in Poland banned all billboards. I'm excited to visit and see how it feels. Amazing I reckon.

Oh, thank God. I only visited Portland once, and despite being vastly different from Austin in climate and flora, the sea of billboards made it feel eerily familiar (and not in a good way). I expected it to feel more like Seattle, but that one thing made a world of difference.

It seems unlike digital ads, the billboard ROI is quite low

Where I live it’s mostly ads for injury attorneys and strip clubs.

I’d be fine without them

Over in Washington state the rule for most major highways is that billboards can only advertise something which is actually being sold on the same piece of property.

I think it strikes a nice balance, preventing the most egregious forms of attention pollution.

Pretty sure Seattle (maybe King County) doesn't allow billboards. You can really tell when you pass the banned area when driving south on I-5 getting close to Tacoma.

Also if interested the opening scenes of The Monkey Wrench Gang (by Edward Abbey) are about illegally cutting down billboards in Southwest Utah.

There are a couple in downtown Seattle maybe it’s on I5? Example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/W6HbwSC4eFYYG3sW8

I hesitate to suggest this but why not just contact anyone advertising asking them to not use billboards for the reasons you have, to the point where a lot of people will take down their billboards as they'll consider them to have a negative impact on their business? Suggest to businesses not to use billboards for the reasons you have, instead of trying to ban the practice.

Maine banned billboards state-wide a long time ago and it’s great

Vermont, Alaska and Hawaii have as well, according to the internet

Yeah I visited Honolulu a few years ago. It took me a couple days to notice why the city sort of felt visually quieter than my home city. I love it - and it was horrible seeing billboards everywhere when I got home.

Just ban all advertising.

Why always jump to the extreme that will have almost zero political chance of winning. Billboards sound like a feasible incremental step in a good direction. Start there, everyone sees tangible improvements and is primed to make a bigger leap. Killing an entire industry as step one, is just simply never going to happen, dream on.

As a lot of HN is US based, I’ll just say in our divided bipartisanship state it’s a real shame we’ve forgotten that incremental improvements is always an option and I’d argue usually the best kind.

Cancer treatment is bad for health too, but it's worth it to cut out and kill cancer before it kills the host. Not everything that is "bad for the economy" is bad for the humans who have to live under it.

How? People would still use their money to buy things. A lot of advertising is adversarial. If demand stays the same but neither you nor your competitors can advertise your products, everyone makes more money.

Of course, there are lots of products where people don't know they would benefit from the product - or don't think of it. For example, life insurance, business loans, university education, movie releases, etc. In those cases, arguably the advertising is creating a positive for society. (Since its resulting in a need being addressed that wouldn't be addressed otherwise.)

Btw, Brazil's largest city, São Paulo, banned billboards. I believe it is better now.

It incentived the spread of graffiti art thorough the city.

Billboards must be terrible for property value, I’m surprised that alone hasn’t caused them to become more sparse.

The most basic billboard is a sign for your business. Can’t ban that.

Where’s the specific bill to support?

I hadn't considered trying to apply uBlock Origin to my real life.

This made me laugh. :)

Billboards are obnoxious, ugly, and as the article pointed out, have basically no oversight from city design boards, meaning that they're not under any obligation to look nice.

In fact, there's almost a reverse incentive; if it clashes with the rest of the city's aesthetic, you're much more likely to notice it.

I don't really see how it's hurting "free speech" to restrict billboards. No one is suggesting we regulate the speech, no one is telling these companies what to say, we just don't want big ugly billboards blasting in our face and making our cities look terrible.

You're of course free to disagree with this, but you almost certainly draw the line somewhere. If I went and dumped a bunch of trash and feces into the middle of the street every day, you probably wouldn't be outraged when I eventually get a ticket, and I doubt that making a "free speech" argument would get me out of that fine, even if I explained the artistic merit of me doing that.

What kind of "bottom up" perspective gives a damn about protecting billboards?

Taking the Supreme Court argument that Property = Speech I see. More money = More volume. There is no equality of "free" speech. Or rather, the speech if free, but the rich get to amplify their voice over the poor. You can say what you want if you're poor, but only if you're rich can you demand people listen to you without recompense or the right to block, and if you DO want to block you're "bad" and "anti-speech". LOL.

Driving is a captive audience, I don't have the option to "close my eyes/plug my ears" to avoid your "free speech" but with free speech comes the right to avoid hearing your bullshit. I can avoid buying a book, I can turn the channel on the radio, but a billboard doesn't offer that "right" to be free FROM your bullshit speech. There's more obligation on billboards in that regards, and it's kinda horseshit that you're allowed to hold me captive because you have enough money to spend on a campaign (whether it's commercial, political, religious IDGAF)

Wish "freespeechers" could understand this. I'm not saying we should just ban everything, and I'm not even sure I agree with a billboard ban (I would have signed up 25 years ago on that, adbusters reading chud that I was). I'm just saying it's really pathetic that people cry "free speech" when there are two things at play and the SCOTUS did a disservice on differentation between signal/noise/amplitude.

> What if we just mostly, you know, live and let live?

Agreed. I would absolutely love it if advertisers would take this advice.

Unfortunately, they don't. They are engaged in an arms race for the attention of every driver on every major road in most metro areas, escalating their efforts to draw the driver's eye away from other billboards and—fatally—away from the road.

"Live and let live" doesn't work when the "speech" in question is explicitly designed to distract people who are driving multiple tons of metal at 65+ mph down the highway.

anarchy, eh? lawlesness is what you pitch is?

People like you say this until the other party is in power, and bans stuff you don’t like, then you will cry about free speech too.

I won’t die on the hill of saving billboards anymore than id die on the hill of not taxing billionaires but sorry, whats fair is fair.

yeah I don't think it should be banned

I mostly agree... but at the same time, in my city billboards also have specific regulations, ordinances, and an approval cycle before a governance committee. Maybe there is a middle ground between "allow everything" and "ban everything", which is simply to update the city code to put guidelines and review on them?

i agree, but not even a middle ground, like a small amount of exceptions for iconic advertisements, such as stuff on sides of buildings like the old Jordan jumpman thing in Chicago. or other stuff that ADD to a city rather than make it worse.

How about instead we fix the local ordinances, many of which were originally installed to prevent Black families from moving into white enclaves, that allow public bodies to function as armed HOAs? Seems like a smaller lift than banning advertising.

I don't care about billboards, but the real complaint in this article isn't about billboards.

Why not both? These policies aren't in opposition. I think its great that lots of different people campaign for lots of different policies which will improve our cities.

Feels like a possibly important but unrelated issue. Is there some connection to billboards?

It's discussed in the article.