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Comment by onan_barbarian

No, thank you. I know abused kids are a serious issue, but the vast majority of kids aren't abused, and this is a disturbing ad to show specifically to a kid, especially when the grown-up with them doesn't see it.

I'm picturing walking past this billboard with my kid and having him ask "Daddy, why does that kid look all beat up" and answering "no, that kid looks perfectly normal, you're making it up". Nice.

There are far better ways to have a very high-quality 2-way covert channel to any kid old enough to read an ad and act on the information here, namely: school. Many teachers are extremely pro-active about figuring out signs of abuse. My mother was a teacher and intervened decisively and successfully in a serious ongoing physical abuse situation once.

Plus, the idea that you might care about kids at school and find out what's up with them is a good precedent that can lead to a lot of other nice related things even when there isn't abuse. On the other hand, lenticular ads that show different things to adults and kids is not a good precedent, whether it's used to show grosser ads to grownups than we currently have to see already ("hey, the kids can't see this") or to covertly market to kids.

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