Should The Answerbank Allow Political Advertising?

[AB Editor]

Afternoon all,

On another thread someone mentioned that they've seen a few UKIP ads on The AnswerBank.

And this brought up the question: Should The AnswerBank Allow Political Advertising?

Our default answer is "yes, why not?" - we don't directly endorse any advertiser that appear on the site (except the obvious ones... like the owls in motoring...), but we do ask that advertisers stick to the rules of the site.

Would you personally find it off-putting to see certain parties advertised on these pages?

[sp1814]

AB Editor

By some quirk of your cookies policy, I'm already inundated with adverts for garden furniture which I ignore (bought a garden set and a space heater last month, which seems to have triggered it), so whether you have political ads is no skin off my nose.

Go ahead.

If it means some extra cash for you - why not?

[sp1814]

Even better...if you started taking adverts from political parties, perhaps you could get involved in a 'cash for adverts' scandal...and you might be forced to give evidence before a Select Committee...and you could wear a big hat with a veil like Alexis Carrington-Colby-Dexter in Dynasty.

Go for it.

Please...it would literally make my year.

[DTCwordfan]

OMG, Ed, you could have God Blair's girlfriend, Wendi, (not Wendilla), rushing to your defence to stop you being cream-pied by one of those trolls from the 'other side,' though, no doubt, there are a few ABers who would love to pull this stunt.

[weecalf]

would they be in the joke section ?

[humbersloop]

applauds weecalf

[ichkeria]

If people have already seen ads for UKIP then does that mean AB already does accept them? Or, if it doesn't, that they have been appearing where they shouldn't?

[Gromit]

// If people have already seen ads for UKIP then does that mean AB already does accept them? Or, if it doesn't, that they have been appearing where they shouldn't? //

AB does not generate all the adverts YOU see on here, they come from a third party, probably Google. You may have noticed, like so earlier, that adverts seem particularly targetted to you. They are. What advert you see is triggered by your search history and your location (found from what ISP you use).

That means that if you have searched for UKiP to find out who your local candidate is, that will be in your search history and could generate an advert for UKiP, if UKiP use Google's (or whoever it is) ad services.

[jeffa]

"Would you personally find it off-putting to see certain parties advertised on these pages?"

Answering a question with a question:

"Would it make the slightest iota of difference to you if the whole AB user-base said that it would?"

[Prudie]

Sorry to disappoint but I don't look at the adverts so wouldn't care. All this stuff comes in with the junk through the door so makes no difference to me.

[youngmafbog]

I really have no problem so long as open to all but as Mickey has asked what would you do with an extreme party (right or left) ? How would you draw the line?

Really it boils down to a business decision I guess.

[AB Editor]

"Would it make the slightest iota of difference to you if the whole AB user-base said that it would?"

It would, if it was clear that it was important to a majority. Our ad partners mostly have options for turning on/off categories (like "travel" or "gambling" for example), so it would be an option.

It seems like the majority don't mind a bit.

Would I allow an extreme party to advertise?

Not if it breaks our rules - and especially if the ad itself breaks our rules/upsets our members. I doubt a lot of it would get through the usual filters put in place for, say, racist language, put in place by our ad partners.

[AB Editor]

Sorry for the late reply by the way - better late than never!

[Credulo]

I would object and probably leave. Its bad enough having them knock on your door.