My British perspective: I don’t want advertisers free to lie as much as they want.

I’ve had ads taken off the TV for being clearly misleading (anyone can raise a complaint to the ASA - the Advertising Standards Agency).

This isn't a government body. It's owned by the TV networks, and makes it easier for companies to get ads pre-apporoved without needing to submit them individually to each network.

Do US TV networks have any rules about what can be shown in ads? Because I somewhat doubt that a company could submit whatever they want and the network has to air it.

It's not government mandated. It's a defacto requirement as all commercial broadcasters require it but that their commercial choice not government.

What's actually illegal in law to broadcast is very different from what you practically cant due to the theoretically voluntary codes. Even that guidance is broad but hard to argue with "Advertisements must contain nothing that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18." No reasonable person would argue you should be allowed to do that.

it is absolutely wild to me that you would allow companies to air adverts without pre-approval.

Then when you add in the ability to advertise prescription drugs?

Well, what could go wrong?

> I think the American First Amendment would obliterate this government body and probably the whole institution if it was ever tried.

This is not a government body, Ofcom is the relevant government body, like the US has the FCC, which you are aware of. The FCC has broadcasting rules. Your supreme court upheld their ability to issue sanctions for violations. This has lead to broad self-censorship by US broadcasters in much the same way the UK has Clearcast, to the point that censorship of stuff like swearwords is a recognizable trait of quite a few TV shows exported from the US. In the past year there have been multiple cases of censorship in response to threats from the FCC and other government bodies, much worse situations than banning an ad. The first amendment has done nothing to stop this.

I'm not here to defend the UK, they have some extremely scary laws on the books, but the US is really not notably different on this front.

The down votes really reflect the groupthink here. American implementation of 1A is not perfect - tyrants still get around to suppressing speech they dislike.

But it's so much better than these alternatives.

> Maybe it's just from an American perspective, but this is absolutely wild to me. Even just the concept of a government-mandated pre-approval body for advertisement seems like a completely pants-on-head concept [1].

British perspective: the volume of your ads, the quickly spoken disclaimer, and the 'look at this cool prescription drug - ask your doctor!' are completely knickers-on-head.

Clearcast is a private company, nothing to do with the government, so you might need to rethink that.

Do broadcast standards and practices for TV networks in the USA not extend to advertising?

It would be very strange for them to e.g censor certain kinds of drug references in the programmes they produce and air, but then permit them in adverts, no?

> Maybe it's just from an American perspective

Imagine a world where the “AI” peddlers would be forced to make realistic claims about their “product” instead of the American advertising style lies were being spammed with everywhere…

The US has other active vectors with similar objectives of expanding government mandated controls over online activity - see the discussion on California age verification law https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181208. So maybe I'm seeing things in my pattern matching - but it seems like a broad push to attack online freedoms into centrist left and right legislatures coming from some internationally coordinated effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearcast

They're a private company functioning as industry self-regulation, not a government department.

Broadcasters sign up to the code, Clearcast pre-clears ads against the code.

Ofcom is the regulator in this space, Clearcast appears to be an industry effort to pre-empt Ofcom by making sure things comply before they've gone out. Broadcasters want Clearcast's seal of approval before broadcast so they know they're OK to broadcast it.

Entirely private sector, I'm not sure there's a lot that's wild about it.

>I think the American First Amendment would obliterate this government body and probably the whole institution if it was ever tried.

I think this is exactly the kind of thing Trump is trying to slow walk us into while everyone is distracted by his war in Iran.

First consolidate the networks into the hands of a few loyal supporters (you don’t need a body to ban a commercial The networks refuse to air), then use the FCC to clean up the remaining opposition.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-fccs-equal...

Read up on the rules surrounding tobacco and alcohol advertising in the US. Make sure you're sitting down, because I fear this may come as a huge shock to you.

Broad censorship has largely become normalized in the UK and EU. It's happening fast and it's terrifying.

Are you kidding me? In the US, you are not even allowed to say the word fuck or display female top nudity.

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Free speech does not exist in the UK or EU. At most there are vague free opinion laws with many grey areas that boil down to "keep them to yourself" if you like to keep your door hinged.