Why are there policies against insults but not against business advertising?

sol@thelemmy.club to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 52 points –

Most instances seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on their code of conduct specifically in regard to insults and harassment. I'm not against that and i understand the concept of "your server your rules" but i'm just curious to understand why many are so concerned with slurs while they don't seem to care much about big tech advertising here. I'm posting this seeing plenty of GAFAM in the top posts of the bigger instances.

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Any blatant ad spam I’ve seen I’ve banned, I haven’t seen much tech ad spam honestly though. The ad spam I’ve seen and banned was for a “luxury taxi service” and “beauty products.” If I wanted to see nonstop ads I’d just remove my ublock origin and rawdog the internet (which in fact I don’t wanna do)

“Rawdogging the internet” might be the best thing I’ve ever heard. Haha

I'm not necessarily against seeing news about big tech products and events. It's still significant in tech. Could you be more specific about what you're referring to? Maybe I'm not understanding

If you look at his history, he thinks that talking about companies in any context should count as advertisement for that company. He is either stupid or has some personal grievance he can't talk about because it makes him look petty.

What is and isn't an ad is a complicated. Any post talking about something that costs money could be an ad but it could also be a consumer information post. I have some tolerance for mods trying to find a balance and correct wording based on how things shake out.

Rules against insults and harassment is super straight forward and any community that gets the line wrong will quickly be filled with the worst people and the fun people will go to other communities where they got it right.

It's difficult to moderate. Advertising isn't always clear, and while overt advertising is almost always removed and banned there are more subtle forms of it that are indistinguishable from any other post of someone using a product. For that kind of advertising it just has to be user discretion, don't buy products just because you saw them in a Lemmy post.

Maybe because they are a major tech topic? That's not advertising

I think it is implied, but I suspect if ads started showing up frequently that it would become an explicit rule. It is already explicitly against the rules for bots to post spam which would cover most ads.

What if I create a business called Fuck You Ltd ? Can I target advertise at specific people?

or policies against brainwashing citizens with propoganda and played out magic