Tag Archives: ASA

November 4, 2020 · 21:03

Pointless versus useless

Yup, consider that part and consider just how useless government oversight really is. To show this we get to the articles about three weeks ago, I noticed them, because I had the aggravated issue with deceptive conduct in advertisement for a while. Several sources give us ‘Ban for annoying puzzle ads which don’t represent the actual game’ (or a version thereof), with the sub-line “The Advertising Standards Authority has banned ads for Homescapes and Gardenscapes”. I have nothing against the game, but any match three game is rigged from the start, it is a clever way to get you to try and perhaps you will make a small purchase, and then she are caught in the addictive need, some just quit. I am ahead of the curve and I steer clear of all these match three games. Yet, The people behind these games (not just these two, others too), made an actual brilliant advertisement jab at the games giving us a DIFFERENT game where you have to select a solution, as such we see “Paid-for Facebook posts advertising games with puzzles – but which did not represent the vast majority of actual gameplay – have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)”, this is what got to me too and when I saw the news, I was happy. So what happened today? Gardenscapes advertisement (the bad one) now shows up in Fallout Shelter in the iOS version, as such it seems to be bloody pointless. Perhaps it is the price for $8.5 billion, perhaps it is the price of joining Microsoft, yet these so called banned advertisements are back, or they never left. Sometimes vacation does not end, it merely changes location.

This gets me to the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/8593c8b5-5a98-4002-ac5a-68b59fbb6463) which was given to us in May with the headline ‘Russian brothers behind ‘Gardenscapes’ emerge as lockdown winners’, and we also get “Two Russian brothers living in London have emerged among the big winners of the lockdown, with their mobile games Gardenscapes and Homescapes making $200m from in-app purchases in April alone”, which sets the station that when you are rich, the ASA might not do anything, OK that is just speculation, but the stage is clear, and nothing seems to be happening. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, 200 million in a lifetime is nothing to be sneered and they are making that each month, I merely wonder if the deceptive advertising was essential to make that much money.

So here we see the stage of pointless (having little or no sense) versus useless (not fulfilling or not expected to achieve the desired outcome). You might think it is the same, but it is not. The difference was seen in my Pencak Silat classes when I was a young lad (when I was 63.8% smaller roughly). Defensive systems (like Judo) are pointless, you are under attack, only countering doesn’t get the job done, there are pure attack based styles which are useless, if you are under attack, one needs defence, so the best martial art is one that decently covers attack and defence. Yes, we have seen all those movies on how great defence is, yet those grandmaster have been at it a decade or two and that tends to be far away from those starting some form of martial art. It now gives rise to the same setting with the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), they can go after Facebook all they like, yet when the advertiser moves to advertise via Bethesda games (Fallout Shelter) how useful was the jab at Facebook?

And when the advertising server moves to the USA, or perhaps Canada, or Saudi Arabia, how will that affect the verdict? It seems to me that the leading man, Guy Parker who has been chief executive of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) since June 2009; living of £120,000 a year might be able to keep up his income and fruitless actions, yet I merely wonder at present what he achieves, do you not feel the same way? When I see advertisement (the deceptive kind) move from place to place, I wonder why we need a man making well over $250,000 a year, it seems a pointless action and a useless way to spend that much money. Feel free to disagree, but there is a massive digital failure in that regard and I reckon I am not the only one thinking that.

In all fairness

I feel that, at times, there is a duty to speak out for the other side. Not because I like it, or because it is essential, but because it is right to do so. Now, let me be clear, I have spoken out against Rupert Murdoch and his phone issues for some time, yet when I saw this article in regards to page 3 (at http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/05/sun-page-3-advert-banned-sexist), I felt it was essential to stand up in favour of page 3. So what is the big deal? I remember seeing page 3 when I was young, innocent and thought that page 3 offered newsworthy information. You find me any boy between 15-18 who thinks that it was not news worthy, then there is a 1% chance he is gay, which is fair enough and 99% chance that this boy is lying (just to coin an option).

That is pretty much the gest of it, but what is in play? The issue is not with the page 3 girl immediately, but with the text behind it “Promotion offered subscribers who recruited 10 or more players to their fantasy football league the chance to win a date with a Page 3 girl“. Is that not great?

No, it is stated “More than 1,000 complaints were received by the advertising regulator about the email promotion“, how lame is that, which I admit is my view of it.

Consider “10 lucky readers can win the ultimate Valentine’s Date with Hawkins herself“, it was a chance to win a date with Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins. So how many letters were sent there? There was an equal complaint of zero to win a date with Brad Pitt through some gossip girls column, whilst he was already married to Angelina Jolie. Then there is the option to Win a date with FHM cover star Georgia Salpa! The list goes on, Ed Sheeran, Cody Simpson, Melanie Iglesias, none of these drew the complaints, but the Page 3 girl did. This is of course the additional weirdness, it was not Mellisa Clarke, Lucy Collett or Lacey Banghard (all former page 3 girls), but the term ‘page 3 girl‘, the label that grew the Sun, that is the part that seems to be under attack. Lucy Colette is now regarded by FHM magazine to be one of its 100 Sexiest Women in the World, so no sexism there? Some of these models have been active for PETA, some have backed a major breast cancer awareness campaign for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, and this list goes on. There is no denying that most men watch page 3 to stare at ‘the twins’, yet these women, many of them used this platform to launch awareness and activities on social levels that have lasted for years.

So, can we all agree that these are either these 1000 complaints come from men who are either jealous or moms who consider their 18 year old on a date with a page 3 girl too offensive? I know that neither is likely the case, but in my view this complaint was hypocrite at best and if we want to have a go at Rupert Murdoch then that is just fine with me, but choose something that should be attacked (like phone hacking). Not some date with a woman, likely to be in a place where she will remain all dressed (many restaurants in London tend to frown on their topless clientele, even when those clients are male).

This is the crux, page 3 is a gimmick it is advertisement, one that has been there for decades. On one side from the newspaper to the topic of sex sells and on the side of the model, to get perhaps a chance to get into modelling, to make some money, whilst they know that a photo, is merely a photo, and these women might sunbath topless and that will not bring them money and still they are likely to get photographed. There is nothing apprehensible about this. The woman does not have to pose and this extra option for a woman, perhaps a model to go out on a nice date with a guy and all is paid for from the credit card of Rupert Murdoch, possibly in a location neither could afford is just an extra bonus. Now let’s look at the other side, were these women truly demeaned, or are they strong independent women setting themselves up for another round of them marketing themselves. You see, these women are basically doing the same thing Brad Pitt and Jennifer Hawkins were doing, just because these two are making millions, no one is complaining. How hypocrite can people get?

This all takes another turn as the Advertising Standards Agency upholds the entire issue. The wordplay, which is what we are used seeing from the Murdoch machine is the same as ever, half-baked innuendo, but no added fire. The text of the ASA that “the offer of a date was sexist, demeaning, offensive and objectified women“, means that they must now ban ANY date option from so many magazines. I wonder how Rupert Murdoch will strike back, because he will in some way. So why is this, a big deal? Well, it isn’t a big deal, but it does show an amount of double standards, which I personally find offensive.

You see, there is another side to all this, as we see some actions which I consider to be lame and counterproductive, because they also defuse the actual need for action as we see the aggravated harassment of Caroline Criado-Perez, as she was able to get Jane Austen on a 10 pound note, that was important, to fight for the safety of Anita Sarkeesian as she is threatened for her right to freedom of speech, this is a massive issue. Yet the issue of some people winning a date with a woman who posed topless by her own free will is just a little too stretched. What makes a date with one of these models more objectifying then a date with former Miss Universe? It does not and I think that the women are not objectified, which makes me wonder who the 1000 complaints were from.

Let’s take one final look at the one part the ASA had upheld: ““In the context of the ad, we considered that to offer a date with a woman as a reward for success in the game was demeaning to women and objectified those offered as prizes.”“, is that so? I am not debating whether it is or it is not, but how come we see no persecution (or is it prosecution) for FHM and other magazines offering the main prize to be a date, simply because no complaints were filed?

It seems to me that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has its work cut out for them, if we consider the 2010 ‘Cosmopolitan Win A Date with Bryann F and Fabio Ide‘, and if we consider the ASA advertising codes on consistency, then quoting the ASA “Consistency is a principle of good regulation; it helps to create clarity which leads to good practice amongst businesses. Something that is good both for industry and consumers. It also helps us to do our job better and concentrate our focus on where it is most needed. That’s why we strive to ensure that the advertising standards set by CAP and the rulings reached by the ASA have proper regard to consistency“, under that guise it will be up to them to ‘outlaw‘ any magazine to offer a date as a prize, I just wonder how the Justin Bieber fans will react when their possible dream date is off the table, not to mention all the other people who allow themselves to be the date for fattening the wallets of good causes and charities, I think that this entire page 3 issue was overexposed and many others might not like the consequence of the result.

Academic Discrimination?

The night was still young when my faithful iPad 1 was beeping me about an issue that had hit the Jerusalem Post (at http://www.jpost.com/International/92-universities-reject-academic-boycott-of-Israel-336771). I could not believe my eyes! A bucket of icy cold water could not have woken me any faster. I had to do some digging (not all sources are of the highest quality), so here is the rundown.

The Guardian had this headline “Why a boycott of Israeli academics is fully justified” (at http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/sep/12/boycott-israeli-academics-justified). And they call themselves academics?

Now, as a non-academic act, here is a wiki page (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks), showing a few issues with the entire endeavour. In addition, these are just the bombings. The list of Hamas ‘actions’ on other fronts are a lot longer and several governments would be very unwilling to confirm several of those acts on their soil. In addition, since 2010 close to 2500 rocket attacks had been made from Gaza by Hamas against Israel.

So, do these academics have ANY clue what they are doing, supporting or talking about? The fact that well over a 100 universities at this time all slammed the boycott brought by the ASA, might be an indication that the ASA could be in for a massive structural reshuffle. The fact that such an act of utter opposition to academic freedom even made it to a vote is already cause for concern in my view.

A quote from Dartmouth College by Paul Mirengoff stated “The ASA consists of approximately 5,000 members. 1,265 of them voted on the resolution, with 66 percent of them supporting it.”

So 66% of the 25% members that voted got this all carried?

The second quote “Among them are Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, New York University, Yale, and Dartmouth College.” (at www.powerlineblog.com) I reckon that under these circumstances, Mr Mirengoff should proudly mention his college next to those Ivy league big boys. Some of the names that Mr Mirengoff did not mention were Stanford, Brown, Duke and Georgetown, but he might not have had those names in any official way at that time. The list (as complete as can be) can be found here http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/12/list-of-universities-rejecting-academic-boycott-of-israel/

It is quite possible that at the time of my writing even more Universities and Colleges joined those ranks.

The issue that is even more paramount is the entire boycotting affair. Yes against Israel, but no opposition to Iranian or Russian Universities? How about Cuban Universities, like the University of Havana?

Now for my own ‘academic’ mistake! Should I have compared Palestinian Academics with Hamas? Is that just not as grievous an error? If we accept Reuters article of last June (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/02/us-palestinians-idUSBRE9510BK20130602) as a given, then there is a distance between some academics and Hamas and its goals, this does not mean that Hamas does not have within its ranks a fair number of distinguished academics (an assumption on my side). Any war has sides and an academic will just like others choose a side. His views and reasoning could be valid, sane and logical. So, when there is an alleged issue in Israeli Universities in regards to Palestinian scholars, then we need to see what actually is happening. The quote “the massive restrictions on academic freedom for Palestinian scholars” is misleading. Is there any restriction against scholars, or are there restrictions on those supporting Hamas? I do not claim to know the answer, or to even have a clue how that equation is in place (if it amounts to some equation that is in place). We do however have decades of acts by Hamas against Israel, most of it nicely mapped. The quote “Hamas and other Palestinian militant organizations contend that they will settle for nothing less than the dissolution of the entire Jewish state.” has reverberated over the media and the internet for almost half a century. It is interesting that the ASA has had little time to illuminate such a level of prosecution against Israel and its Jewish population.

In my view, academics need to remain outside of that entire political debacle for the simple reason that as long as there is one group that remains talking to each other, the option for any peaceful solution will remain a possible reality.

Tag Archives: ASA

Pointless versus useless

In all fairness

Academic Discrimination?

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