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ASA to take over Facebook, Twitter regulation

Advertising regulator the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) will take over the regulation of companies' social networking pages by the end of the year, according to advertising industry proposals. The ASA hopes that the move will plug a regulatory gap that has resulted in two thirds of the complaints it receives relating to …

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Andrew Taylor 1
Flame

So the ASA

will officially be able to whitewash your complaint rather than pass the buck as they do now. Great news for users, I don't think so. ASA , one Quango that definately needs to be got rid of by whichever party gets into power in May.

M.A
Big Brother

i think

It is time to delete my twitter and facebook accounts this will lead to even more censorship

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
Reply Icon

Missing the point.

You are so far from the point it's hard to believe. Companies are abusing social network sites in order to advertise. Is that what you really want?

The ASA are to be empowered to control companies using social networking sites to advertise. Not to censor the use of those sites in what their users would consider to be their true spirit. Of course the true spirt of these sites as far as their owners are concerned is to make money, and how do they do that? Advertising.

And while they're at it I think they should ban all political parties from using social network sites for electioneering.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Unelected and unregulated.

We received a complaint from the ASA about an email we sent to our customers. The email was factually correct and not misleading but the ASA were not interested in establishing the facts. They simply said we have received this complaint and if you don't sign an agreement not to send it again we can go to a tribunal and put our case.

It was absolutely nuts, I really feel that this quasi governmental body that has no legal powers at all (Its a "Self-reguatory" body), is trying to grab more control and it should be given the boot. Trading standards should regulate adverts not this unelected body working to whose agenda?

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
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Easy for you to say

It's easy for you to tell us this story, but without any evidence to back it up your post is meaningless. Of course you would say that wouldn't you? You're hardly likely to say "we were completely in the wrong". Which is of course why we need a body like the ASA. Unfortunately, as the first poster pointed out, the ASA don't uphold enough complaints.

Anonymous Coward
FAIL

ASA or OFCOM...

Its hard to work out which of these two bodies is the more utterly, utterly (expletive deleted) useless.

Their mottos appear to be "Its not like we give a damn".

Rob 5
Reply Icon

@ AC - ASA or OFCOM...

It's touching to find somebody who still expects the people who "work" at these bullshit organisations to actually do the jobs they purport to do. The rest of us realise it's Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, all the way down.

Sadly, we're in that difficult time when it's too late to work within the system, yet too early to hang the bastards.

Malcolm Boura 2

ASA is not

The ASA is an industry self regulation outfit. In other words it has little or no legal status and little or no accountability. It is certainly not required to base its decisions on rational consideration of harm. Indeed, since it is the industry response to the threat of government intervention it is probably driven mainly by whaterver is the lowest common denominator public opinion urban myth.

Governments love self regulation, that way they don't have to take any responsibility or find any funding.

Robert Carnegie

ASA is toothless

Was it they who used to say that ads had to be "Legal, decent, honest, and truthful"? Maybe you missed one of the four.

They probably get a lot of spurious complaints, including from your competitors. On the other hand, their usual sanction is to require that a particular unsatisfactory ad is not repeated. If for instance it was your January Sale 2009 announcement, then probably you.could just say that you weren't going to have another January Sale 2009, and it's case closed. Easy, and there isn't even a judgment against you.

Alan Brown

ASA != regulator

ASA = Trade association with voluntary membership.

Zero statutory powers. Zip, Nada. Zilch.

(And a webmistress who actually admitted in a phone call she doesn't understand what a "Html coding error" is....)

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