What a patronising policy.

And no word yet on re-touching bar chart lengths, I take it?

Is this really an issue in need of a campaign?

A little bit of time spent in photoshop airbrushing models into shapes which no one of any intelligence would believe to be a work of nature isn’t all that bad is it? Do the Lib Dems really think that women are stupid enough to think that the pages fashion mags are the places for the ‘promotion of real women’?

Considering the lies that are threaded through newspapers and magazines, airbrushing is perhaps the least damaging of them all.

Basically advertisers shouldn’t lie… It’s a bit of a no brainer really.

Where airbrushing has been used, it should be labelled. Those under 16 are vulnerable, that’s why they’re called children. They are not the same as adults and maybe they need protecting.

Personally I think it’s a fairly minor issue, but there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with making sure advertisers and papers tell the truth. In fact its a pretty basic function of a free society.

Advertisers should be honest and upfront about the extent of airbrushing that goes on. It is frankly dishonest to advertise an anti-wrinkle cream and then airbrush out all of the wrinkles in the ad.

What’s wrong with this statement? I don’t get why 1 and 2 oppose this. Nothing is banned apart from advertising aimed at children who are vulnerable anyway. And other things are clearly labelled. Everyone is more informed, a better end result is produced. Knowledge is power and all that.

It’s not patronising at all. The research is clear. The policy is to try and get people to complain to the ASA.

The website, however, is execrable.

Airbrushing’s great. I’ve got a piece of software that airbrushes my posts. I just type…”daft patronising liberal twats. Sunny is a moron”….and out pops…

Au contraire Mr Hundal, I fear your Liberal pieties have yet again blinded you to the obvious fact that, politically at least, what this country lacks is an genuine, effective left-wing presence. Frankly, the policies you espouse render you a clichéd dilettante cast in the regrettable role of useful idiot for an ever expanding and rapacious corporate state.

It’s brilliant…downloaded it free from…www.stickittotheliberals.com

This is why the LibDems are a waste of space. Honestly – banning airbrushing in adverts? It’s now the State’s business to plaster billboards and magazines with spotty teenagers?

Yes, real teenagers don’t have unblemished skin but they don’t play fucking Quiditch either.

‘Liberals’ have a long tradition of censorship to ‘protect’ children. So how’s David Alton’s video nasty law doing these days?

‘Airbrushing’s great. I’ve got a piece of software that airbrushes my posts.’

And I’ve got an application that makes tits jiggle.

‘It’s not patronising at all. The research is clear.’

The kind of ‘research’ you might find churned out by Aric Sigman or Susan Greenfield.

I’m sympathetic to the principle, but I don’t see how enforcing this is feasible – in some cases airbrushing is obvious; in others it’s more subtle. I’m all for banning things, but there may be a better solution.

Instead, let’s introduce a quota system for these adverts so the proportion of differently beautiful people to Hollywood beautiful people present in the general population is reflected in the adverts.

I know, you’re going to say I haven’t thought this through, and this could prevent existing models from getting work, but here’s the beauty of it – if they weren’t hitting quotas, they could airbursh spots, zits etc onto models.

Sorry but I really can’t see the problem with airbrushing if it makes something more appealing to look at.

The obvious answer: tax it, like they do tobacco and alcohol.

Tax airbrushing?!?

Taxing airbrushing isn’t an appropriate solution – it’d discourage advertisers from hiring models with more blemishes as they’d have to do more airbrushing.

I don’t know what’s worse, the thought that this was worthy of a post of the comments attached to it.

Who gives a fuck?

Of course advertising effects people’s self-image but no doubt best to focus on the big picture rather than the poxy matter of airbrushing; this just makes the Lib Dems look small time.

“I’ve got a piece of software that airbrushes my posts.”

Send it back. It’s ballsing up your grammar.

Who said they’ve advocated banning or taxing anything?

I love the way some people get into a tizzy so quickly. They’re encouraging people to complain as is their right. Democracy in action.

‘Who said they’ve advocated banning or taxing anything?’

You did in the original post:

‘After the Libdems earlier called for digital retouching to be banned in adverts targeted at children, and clearly indicated in adverts aimed at adults’

Do you not realise advocating ‘banning’ something and calling for something to be ‘banned’ are the same thing, or are there two of you and the one isn’t reading what the other one writes?

Do you not realise advocating ‘banning’ something and calling for something to be ‘banned’ are the same thing, or are there two of you and the one isn’t reading what the other one writes?

Sorry, let me try and clear up the confusion. The Libdems originally called for a ban on airbrushing of young kids, as it says in the article linked to the BBC report. I think that’s quite sensible anyway.
This campaign is not focused on banning but shifting public opinion by encouraging people to complain to the ASA and raise awareness of when it happens. I think that’s entirely sensible.

Sorry, just realised Chris Barnyard wrote the original comment, not Sunny. Maybe he’s been writing here too long and he’s starting to adopt Sunny’s shrill style but I should have recognised it wasn’t Sunny by the lack of references to Guido Fawkes and his body fluids.

Still, the article clearly states the LibDems called for a ban.

“I don’t know what’s worse, the thought that this was worthy of a post of the comments attached to it.

Who gives a fuck?”

My sentiments exactly.

they do have a good point there about misleading advertising, if these anti-wrinkle creams are so good then surely there would be no need to airbrush the people in the adverts who are supposedly using these products and getting these results.
as for the point about unrealistic body images… i do kind of agree with them, teenage boys who’ve never been laid get their ideas about women’s bodies from pictures and they can be very cruel to girls their age if they look like (shock horror) normal people instead of airbrushed models, and if people want to complain then why not. on the other hand, it’s not really politicians’ place to intervene with what people do with their pictures (bar stopping stuff like misleading advertising).

Woaaah…

Okay, hands up if you’re a woman?? Anyone? Come on, more women must read this site or comment?

Well, as a woman I’ll comment.

I went to a Lib D discussion about this and suggested a disclaimer, a la you get on cigarettes would work better because people are insane and aspirational. They get a kick out of seeing fake beauty.

‘It’s all so real…’

But it’s a huge issue and something that shouldn’t be debated on this site, Lib Dem Voice or most of the media, why? Because you all live in your ‘freedom’ bubbles were people are either to weak to make a decision so money is shoved at them-that’ll help??? or people are responsible of themsleves from the ages of 10 and can look after themselves. Plus you’re prob all grad educated, from good families and have barely struggled..even if you’re women.

This policy should’ve taken to the streets in the UK. I have one right near were I leave with 10 year old girls looking around for a shag on the streets trying to look sexy with bad make up with those TopShop leggings…or an obese young woman dragging her body unhappily whilst binging on chips.

Regardless of their ‘freedom’ of choice, it’s not easy being a woman. I don’t CARE how far we’ve come. We’re objectified. I went to an all girls school with a huge majority who were anorexic and bullimic. I even tried it once after some remarks but gave up cause it’s a waste of my time BUT not every girl was like me.

You know what should accompany this piece? You should give links to all the pro anorexic sites. The one’s that sit their and judge the women in magazines to themselves. The one’s who think ‘sh*t, why am I not a size zero, no dinner for me..ever’.

I know it means being empathetic but hey? We ALL have to live in this world. We ALL pay taxes and we ALL contribute to a better and more sustainable society, no?

I like how the picture for this article is of Nick Clegg rather than the woman who initiated the campaign, Jo Swinson. Any good reason for that?

Shatterface – the OP quite clearly says that there should be “a ban on adverts aimed at under-16s using digital retouching to portray unrealistic body images”. That’s not “ban all airbrushing, ever”, it’s very clear, and I think worthwhile to not present children with unattainable images.

I also agree with Hel that adverts should not be lies, and that unhealthily-tiny waists and more-than-perfect skin count as lies. I’m fully in support of this campaign!

#24 – how can you enforce the ban on u-16s being airbrushed, though? I agree that many images look as if they have been airbrushed, but surely proving it is a different matter. Wouldn’t you need the photographer’s hard drive? Would you regularly raid the offices of every major magazine/advertisers’ offices?

tim f @ 25:

It’s not a ban on under 16s being airbrushed, it’s a ban on advertising targeted at under-16s, to be clear.

Firstly, it’s dead easy to spot a lot of bad photoshopping if you know what to look for, and second, there are an *awful lot* of things that ads & marketing people have to do because it’s the law and by-and-large, large companies make sure that their staff are properly trained to act within the law because if they are caught they know that they are in big trouble. Example: online competitions that ask for your email address; the owners of these databases have to be very careful what they do with them and very very rarely actually use your email address for something that they didn’t ask for your permission for in advance.

Remember, anyway, it’s not the actual ads people who are doing the photo retouching – mostly because IMO they’re almost universally cretins who are barely able to handle a mouse – it’s professional artists, and if there are rules for them to follow, I have faith that a lot of them will. You’re right when you say it’s hard to enforce but it only takes a few high-profile convictions to make people think that it’s not worth the risk for them to break the rules.

If it was a general ban I think that it would probably be unenforceable but because it’s for stuff targetted at children, I think that the artists involved would generally play ball.

SHITE!

A lot of people are STILL in horrendous dire straight in Sri Lanka and you see fit to print this drivel instead of thinking about what is f*cking going on in the real world!

Mhm, and millions die of malnutrition, war and AIDS in Africa every year, which is an even bigger problem than Sri Lanka, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore Sri Lanka either.

…just because problem A is more serious than problem B doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t care at all about problem B or try and do anything about it. Particularly when the fix here is very easy and we can have a direct influence on, whereas solving the problems in either Sri Lanka or Africa are incredibly complex and challenging.