> I'm very pro gun, pro freedom of consumption, pro crypto, etc. but once emotional manipulation comes into play, self-determinism goes out the window and people are no longer making free choices.
To me, this is a very mature response. The whole idea of you do what you want as an adult and you own all of the consequences. Why do you make an exception for "emotional manipulation"? To be clear: I am not trolling in this post. I want to know why you think these things can be legal, but advertising about them is "morally bad".
Well, advertising as a concept is fine, but the industry is steeped in advanced, refined yet old-as-time-itself psychological manipulation tactics.
When addiction is intentionally engineered at a high level and wrapped in the Trojan horse of self-sufficiency or emotion, deceit, or the power of suggestion, we have a problem. Imagine Taylor Swift doing an ad for crack cocaine.