"But late last week, some additional news broke that makes the whole thing even more grotesque: turns out the campaign pushing hardest for the ban was run by an ad agency that makes gambling ads. The same gambling ads that were facing their own potential ban-until the Australian government decided that, hey, with all the kids kicked off social media, gambling ads can stay."
"FINCH has worked on at least five gambling advertisements since 2017, according to public announcements and trade magazine reporting. Its clients include TAB Australia (a 2023 campaign called "There was staff overlap, too. Attwells' LinkedIn lists him as both 36 Months' managing director and FINCH's head of communications from May to December 2024. FINCH staff worked on the 36 Months campaign.Australia's national sport is..."), Ladbroke, Sportsbet and CrownBet (now BetEasy)."
A marketing campaign called "36 Months" promoted raising the social media age from 13 to 16, claiming it would keep teens offline for an extra 36 months. The campaign was planned and created by FINCH, an advertising company that has produced multiple gambling advertisements and represented major bookmakers. FINCH staff and leadership reportedly overlapped with the campaign team. At the same time, regulators decided not to ban online gambling ads, citing the under-16 social media restrictions as a reason to leave gambling advertising in place.
Read at Techdirt
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]