> Mullvad was rejected by Clearcast, the organization responsible for approving all TV ads in the UK and ensuring they comply with the rules set by the authorities
> “The overall concept lacks clarity.”
“It is unclear why certain examples are included, who the ‘speaker’ represents, and the role of individuals depicted in the car.”
> "Referencing topics such as: Paedophiles, Rapists, Murderers, Enemies of the state, Journalists, Refugees, Controversial opinions, People’s bedrooms, Police officers, Children’s headsets … is inappropriate and irrelevant to the average consumer’s experience with a VPN."
Maybe it's just from an American perspective, but this is absolutely wild to me. Even just the concept of a government-mandated pre-approval body for advertisement seems like a completely pants-on-head concept [1].
I think the American First Amendment would obliterate this government body and probably the whole institution if it was ever tried.
[1] Yes the FCC has limited authority after-the-fact to impose fines for things like indecency.
Advance censorship is typically forbidden, for good reason. It's one thing to go after someone for lying, another thing to sit there all the time and try to make sure no lies are ever heard.
>My British perspective: I don’t want advertisers free to lie as much as they want.
Not exactly what happened here is it?
A private company which somehow gets to approve ads rejected an advert complaining about a dystopian lack of privacy under a government that is actively trying to kill off privacy.
Censorship is not a solution. Instead, companies, whose messages are misleading, could pay a fine for their misleading message. Otherwise, you end up in 1984...sorry, I mistyped "UK in 2026".
You avoid having companies, who can swallow the bill, making whatever claims they like without having to much to worry about other than a slap on the wrist - Their claims are already out. J&J, P&G, Unilever et al - you may trust them to do the right thing, i don't.
A fine doesn’t undo a lie that’s already made it around the world.
Although given Brexit I’d question how useful the ASA actually is. It seems Russian funded politicians were free to spew endless lies at the average citizen with no repercussions.
Conflating 'Advertising' with 'Speech' doesn't really work here i feel.
It is possible to restrict one without the other. The UK, can quite easily stop an advert from saying things like:
>> A paid-for Meta ad and a website listing for an online clothing company misleadingly claimed they were established and owned by armed forces veterans and that they donated a share of profits to PTSD support organisations.
And still allow The Guardian to run a campaign on shadowy organisations funding politics.
Conflating them is done, i feel by those who run companies... i dunno, like VPN's, for the purposes of viral marketing and generating outrage.
That's the thing: the idea that one must be allowed. No; you publish it, and the most the government can do is stop you from repeating it and punish you for having done so.
Note that I'm not defending the US system as perfect, or even necessarily good in all places and at all times. But it is a system that has benefits.
There are quite a few countries which consistently score higher than the US on democracy, overall freedom and press freedom indices, despite not having these absolutist freedom of speech provisions in their constitutions (if they even have constitutions). Because it's not about the piece of paper or what's written on it, is it? It's about the society and what it allows their government to get away with. If the US ever becomes an authoritarian dictatorship, it'll have the exact same constitution and reverence for Founding Fathers, plus a few extra Supreme Court decisions.
Advertising is clearly speech. But fraud and libel are widely recognized as exceptions to free speech, IF you can prove intent to defraud. If you squint, you could classify nearly anything as an advertisement, but not everything is classifiable as "true" or not in an objective, universal sense (or even a generally recognized sense). For example, an ad for a church may be an expression of free speech, but arguing that it is false advertisement is absurd.
The solution for that is to commit a Pentagon Papers worth of atrocities every single day, so that people get worn out from reading about it and just come to expect it as normal.
The down votes really reflect the groupthink here. American implementation of 1A is not perfect - tyrants still get around to suppressing speech they dislike.
On the contrary, the recent developments of America have made it very clear what the problem with "freedom to lie" and "freedom to smear" is. Especially when we're talking about adverts, which aren't exactly an important part of the discourse universe and are a potential vector for fraud.
(wait until the Americans understand what the rules for political TV broadcasts are in the UK, they will absolutely lose their minds. And the spending rules. And how little money is involved in UK elections.)
There's more serious concerns about UK libel law, and things like the proscription of Palestine Action, but generally I would say that if what you have to say is both true and important you can get your message across. Despite the newspapers and broadcasters.
The downvotes might also represent people downvoting those who are uninformed - Clearcast is a private body owned and operated by the broadcasters, not a government body.
It's not government mandated. It's a defacto requirement as all commercial broadcasters require it but that their commercial choice not government.
What's actually illegal in law to broadcast is very different from what you practically cant due to the theoretically voluntary codes. Even that guidance is broad but hard to argue with "Advertisements must contain nothing that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18." No reasonable person would argue you should be allowed to do that.
The US has other active vectors with similar objectives of expanding government mandated controls over online activity - see the discussion on California age verification law https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181208. So maybe I'm seeing things in my pattern matching - but it seems like a broad push to attack online freedoms into centrist left and right legislatures coming from some internationally coordinated effort.
Imagine a world where the “AI” peddlers would be forced to make realistic claims about their “product” instead of the American advertising style lies were being spammed with everywhere…
Read up on the rules surrounding tobacco and alcohol advertising in the US. Make sure you're sitting down, because I fear this may come as a huge shock to you.
They're a private company functioning as industry self-regulation, not a government department.
Broadcasters sign up to the code, Clearcast pre-clears ads against the code.
Ofcom is the regulator in this space, Clearcast appears to be an industry effort to pre-empt Ofcom by making sure things comply before they've gone out. Broadcasters want Clearcast's seal of approval before broadcast so they know they're OK to broadcast it.
Entirely private sector, I'm not sure there's a lot that's wild about it.
Clearcast is a private body owned by the broadcasters. The BCAP code is issued by the Advertising Standards Authority which, despite the name, is an industry self-regulation body.
It appears to be established in law that Clearcast is an assistance service, and approval doesn't seem to be sufficient or necessary by law to ensure advertising is legal. It establishes risk, rather than making a legal finding.
If Mullvad's ad was 'banned' by Clearcast, what happened is that their ad didn't meet the standards that the industry has set for itself and the broadcasters didn't want to touch it.
(edit - does this make it 'better'? I don't know. It seems to me a bit like the situation in the US with HOAs, which heavily restrict what you can and can't do with your property, but aren't exactly government either. But I favour accuracy over emotion when talking about this stuff, which is why I wanted to point out the actual structure of the system here.)
Not sure how an HOA is relevant here? Communities vote to form an HOA for themselves, new owners buying into an HOA community know up-front what the restrictions are.
Not remotely the same as a cabal of media conglomerates getting together to agree on their own rules about how they are going to interpret and enforce government-mandated censorship in society.
Free speech does not exist in the UK or EU. At most there are vague free opinion laws with many grey areas that boil down to "keep them to yourself" if you like to keep your door hinged.
>I think the American First Amendment would obliterate this government body and probably the whole institution if it was ever tried.
I think this is exactly the kind of thing Trump is trying to slow walk us into while everyone is distracted by his war in Iran.
First consolidate the networks into the hands of a few loyal supporters (you don’t need a body to ban a commercial The networks refuse to air), then use the FCC to clean up the remaining opposition.
Mullvad says it is, they're more credible than Ofcom or Ofcom's fans. The trick of strong-arming all providers of a certain medium to "self"-censor in order to implement advance censorship is an old trick.
It was Clearcast that rejected it you can see the reasoning here [0], seems to be mostly that it implies VPNs facilitate criminal activity and "irrelevant to the average consumer’s experience with a VPN". Either way they gave a real gift to the marketing team in rejecting it. Every person in advertising dreams of having to write the phrase "our banned ad" even more perfect when the ad was about tracking/censorship.
you can see what mullvad, the company selling a product here, say what the reasoning was.
As i say, smacks of marketing campaign. Did clearcast give the marketing team a gift, or did the marketing team invent it? All we have is Mullvads word, but my word they have been running an extensive campaign in london for a while now.
Step 1:
cryptically warn people that their rights are under attack.
Step 2:
tell people that you have been banned from saying any more.
Step 3:
Conveniently make no mention of the fact that this highly controversial 'banned' ad is absolutely watchable, in the UK, on youtube, with links to it from traditional media adverts.
> Step 2: tell people that you have been banned from saying any more.
They said their ad is "banned from TV" because they offer a way to circumvent internet surveillance.
> Step 3: Conveniently make no mention of the fact that this highly controversial 'banned' ad is absolutely watchable, in the UK, on youtube, with links to it from traditional media adverts.
Because it is about TV... what does YouTube have to do with this? It says on the damn Ad "Banned on TV".
Hah, yes I switched over as soon as they started showing the scenes behind the scenes behind the scenes.
I worked on the set of an electric shaver commercial once. I’m wouldn’t say out loud that the production team were up themselves, but in addition to the regular crew there was a second director on set making a “making of” documentary about the production process. For a shaver commercial.
Sadly, it's Mullvad VPN itself which may be banned in the UK. VPNs will require identify verification. Not a problem for companies which require credit cards for payment, but Mullvad famously allows anonymous cash payments through the post.
Personally I find the advert a bit confusing, even with an understanding of what they are trying to achieve and their business. Was expecting something along the lines of Led By Donkeys...
I can't use Mullvad for several banks in the UK with IPv4 - if I switch to IPv6 in the app settings I sometimes can, but often I have to just disable it completely...
I can't use Youtube anonymously (i.e. without logging in) within the last month or so either, as Youtube very often won't play content due to my IP as well...
I saw the ads on the tube and was very confused. I knew about Mullvad, but it never crossed my mind they were trying to get me to search for "and then".
I saw the ads saying "and then?" and still didnt get it.
I like the product but i think their ad campaigns suck. If they want exposure and controversy i think they should run adverts to kill new proposed laws, target privacy hating politicians, etc.
Maybe it's just me, but there's something extra dystopian about surveillance and privacy invasion, when presented with the London skyline in the background.
Put giant video ad in tourist places in London to sell adblock?
And now much "surveillance" does a VPN prevent anyway? This is a regulatory & legislative problem and I don't see how any public VPN is part of the solution.
The whole ad is vague slop tbh, I can see why it wasn't allowed to air, also I don't know why people fixate on CCTV when the vast majority of it is used by private companies and the government doesn't have access to it without a request, there isn't any mass surveillance in this case just business owners managing risk and monitoring for crimes on their property
> “The overall concept lacks clarity.” “It is unclear why certain examples are included, who the ‘speaker’ represents, and the role of individuals depicted in the car.”
> "Referencing topics such as: Paedophiles, Rapists, Murderers, Enemies of the state, Journalists, Refugees, Controversial opinions, People’s bedrooms, Police officers, Children’s headsets … is inappropriate and irrelevant to the average consumer’s experience with a VPN."
Maybe it's just from an American perspective, but this is absolutely wild to me. Even just the concept of a government-mandated pre-approval body for advertisement seems like a completely pants-on-head concept [1].
I think the American First Amendment would obliterate this government body and probably the whole institution if it was ever tried.
[1] Yes the FCC has limited authority after-the-fact to impose fines for things like indecency.
I’ve had ads taken off the TV for being clearly misleading (anyone can raise a complaint to the ASA - the Advertising Standards Agency).
Not exactly what happened here is it?
A private company which somehow gets to approve ads rejected an advert complaining about a dystopian lack of privacy under a government that is actively trying to kill off privacy.
You avoid having companies, who can swallow the bill, making whatever claims they like without having to much to worry about other than a slap on the wrist - Their claims are already out. J&J, P&G, Unilever et al - you may trust them to do the right thing, i don't.
Although given Brexit I’d question how useful the ASA actually is. It seems Russian funded politicians were free to spew endless lies at the average citizen with no repercussions.
Then when you add in the ability to advertise prescription drugs?
Well, what could go wrong?
It's also nigh-impossible for a libel suit to succeed. And the government can't stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
You can make strong arguments either way, but at the very least you have to acknowledge that it's not all downsides.
It is possible to restrict one without the other. The UK, can quite easily stop an advert from saying things like:
>> A paid-for Meta ad and a website listing for an online clothing company misleadingly claimed they were established and owned by armed forces veterans and that they donated a share of profits to PTSD support organisations.
And still allow The Guardian to run a campaign on shadowy organisations funding politics.
Conflating them is done, i feel by those who run companies... i dunno, like VPN's, for the purposes of viral marketing and generating outrage.
That's the thing: the idea that one must be allowed. No; you publish it, and the most the government can do is stop you from repeating it and punish you for having done so.
Note that I'm not defending the US system as perfect, or even necessarily good in all places and at all times. But it is a system that has benefits.
Yet. Give this administration a little time and they’ll solve that problem too.
(They’ve already addressed it to some degree by intimidating the press.)
But it's so much better than these alternatives.
(wait until the Americans understand what the rules for political TV broadcasts are in the UK, they will absolutely lose their minds. And the spending rules. And how little money is involved in UK elections.)
There's more serious concerns about UK libel law, and things like the proscription of Palestine Action, but generally I would say that if what you have to say is both true and important you can get your message across. Despite the newspapers and broadcasters.
What's actually illegal in law to broadcast is very different from what you practically cant due to the theoretically voluntary codes. Even that guidance is broad but hard to argue with "Advertisements must contain nothing that could cause physical, mental, moral or social harm to persons under the age of 18." No reasonable person would argue you should be allowed to do that.
Imagine a world where the “AI” peddlers would be forced to make realistic claims about their “product” instead of the American advertising style lies were being spammed with everywhere…
(slightly ambiguous conclusion that none of them have prevailed in court, but the laws can still be used to intimidate food critics)
They're a private company functioning as industry self-regulation, not a government department.
Broadcasters sign up to the code, Clearcast pre-clears ads against the code.
Ofcom is the regulator in this space, Clearcast appears to be an industry effort to pre-empt Ofcom by making sure things comply before they've gone out. Broadcasters want Clearcast's seal of approval before broadcast so they know they're OK to broadcast it.
Entirely private sector, I'm not sure there's a lot that's wild about it.
It is 100% government mandated censorship.
It appears to be established in law that Clearcast is an assistance service, and approval doesn't seem to be sufficient or necessary by law to ensure advertising is legal. It establishes risk, rather than making a legal finding.
If Mullvad's ad was 'banned' by Clearcast, what happened is that their ad didn't meet the standards that the industry has set for itself and the broadcasters didn't want to touch it.
(edit - does this make it 'better'? I don't know. It seems to me a bit like the situation in the US with HOAs, which heavily restrict what you can and can't do with your property, but aren't exactly government either. But I favour accuracy over emotion when talking about this stuff, which is why I wanted to point out the actual structure of the system here.)
Not remotely the same as a cabal of media conglomerates getting together to agree on their own rules about how they are going to interpret and enforce government-mandated censorship in society.
I think this is exactly the kind of thing Trump is trying to slow walk us into while everyone is distracted by his war in Iran.
First consolidate the networks into the hands of a few loyal supporters (you don’t need a body to ban a commercial The networks refuse to air), then use the FCC to clean up the remaining opposition.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/trump-fccs-equal...
https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html?q=mull...
This smacks of viral campaign to me.
[0]: https://cybernews.com/news/and-then-mullvads-anti-surveillan...
you can see what mullvad, the company selling a product here, say what the reasoning was.
As i say, smacks of marketing campaign. Did clearcast give the marketing team a gift, or did the marketing team invent it? All we have is Mullvads word, but my word they have been running an extensive campaign in london for a while now.
Step 1: cryptically warn people that their rights are under attack.
Step 2: tell people that you have been banned from saying any more.
Step 3: Conveniently make no mention of the fact that this highly controversial 'banned' ad is absolutely watchable, in the UK, on youtube, with links to it from traditional media adverts.
> Step 1: cryptically warn people that their rights are under attack.
They are, UK is heavy surveillance, there is an article on Wikipedia dedicated just to this subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
> Step 2: tell people that you have been banned from saying any more.
They said their ad is "banned from TV" because they offer a way to circumvent internet surveillance.
> Step 3: Conveniently make no mention of the fact that this highly controversial 'banned' ad is absolutely watchable, in the UK, on youtube, with links to it from traditional media adverts.
Because it is about TV... what does YouTube have to do with this? It says on the damn Ad "Banned on TV".
> way they gave a real gift to the marketing team
A gift to us in how dishonest marketing can be, yeah.
> "irrelevant to the average consumer’s experience with a VPN"
Clearcast doesn't like snake oil, it'd seem.
I worked on the set of an electric shaver commercial once. I’m wouldn’t say out loud that the production team were up themselves, but in addition to the regular crew there was a second director on set making a “making of” documentary about the production process. For a shaver commercial.
I can't use Mullvad for several banks in the UK with IPv4 - if I switch to IPv6 in the app settings I sometimes can, but often I have to just disable it completely...
I can't use Youtube anonymously (i.e. without logging in) within the last month or so either, as Youtube very often won't play content due to my IP as well...
I saw the ads saying "and then?" and still didnt get it.
I like the product but i think their ad campaigns suck. If they want exposure and controversy i think they should run adverts to kill new proposed laws, target privacy hating politicians, etc.
And now much "surveillance" does a VPN prevent anyway? This is a regulatory & legislative problem and I don't see how any public VPN is part of the solution.
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/removing-the-support-for-forward...
It's quite bad not having a port forward when filesharing though.