Mildly Interesting

So, first off, any content made to change your mind is propaganda. Doesn't matter how true or false it is, doesn't matter if it's cherry-picking info, doesn't matter if it doesn't make any claims at all, doesn't matter if it's paid for by a state or a religious group or a single individual. And it HAS to be defined this way, because there does not exist an impartial arbitrating party to draw a distinction for us. If we try to limit it only to information meant to mislead, then we have to figure out who decides whether something is misleading.

A poster that just says "hang in there" or "just give up" can be used as propaganda if you post it all over the place to raise or lower morale. It's not making any claims, it's not pushing a certain brand, it's just trying to change what you think about. That's propaganda.

Second, this whole thing assumes no one ever wants to see an advertisement. But if you're arguing honestly, the reality is that sometimes you do. You want to know your favorite band is playing downtown. You want to know that the roofing company across town that does good work even exists. You want to know about whatever new silly product was made that aligns with your hobbies. In order to have an honest conversation, we need to agree that not all advertising is unwanted.

all television commercials and magazine inserts and pop up ads and billboards are gone we can start debating the nuance of where exactly the line is drawn

Would PSAs be banned? Those are nothing if not propaganda. How about billboards advertising a religious group? What if I buy a magazine because it does a great job at making me aware of products I actually do often want to buy?

You would have to report that income on your taxes

And what if I benefit in an indirect, difficult way to trace outside of being paid? Or what if it's MY company?

know we currently do not, but it is possible to treat an individual and a business/corporation differently...It is possible to hold an organizations speech to different standards than an individual.

As a small business owner, how do I make customers aware that I exist?

until the point you try to organize and artificially broadcast that speech wider than you could on your own.

Where is that line? We've invented so many things that amplify our speech wider than what we could do "on our own". A megaphone reaches more people than if I yell. A 10ft sign in my yard reaches more people than a tshirt. A social media account with 1 million followers reaches people than 1000 followers reaches more than 10 followers. Should I be able to make a flyer? Should I be able to use a printing press to copy that flyer? Should i be able to nail copes of that flyer all over the door of the catholic church and start a Reformation? Where is the line?

(It's also worth reading up on the history of advertising in television in the UK. The idea of creating legislation to limit the prevalence of advertising is not new, and neither are the methods used to work around them.)

In summary, this is a very hard problem, but...I think the solution could be solved democratically. I don't think the solution lies in trying to rigorously define what constitutes an ad, only for the form of an ad to morph. Rather, it lies in disincentivizing people seeing unwanted ads in the first place. The fact that people look around and see ads they don't want to see needs to be translated directly into some kind of proportional tax.

Ex. If you poll the people, and they say "I see too many McDonalds ads" then the people (i.e. govt) should penalize McDonalds proportionally. If we poll again, and the penalty doesn't result in people reporting seeing fewer unwanted McDonalds ads, then increase the penalty. When the penalty is high enough, it won't be worth it for McDonalds to run so many aggressive ads, and they'll have to reduce advertising in order for the people to report fewer unwanted ads in order for the penalty to drop. That's the only possible implementation I see as actually working.