Big tobacco advertises to children age 13 - 17 after making sure parents can't see the screen

I've been meaning to blog about this since it happened on May 24th but what with being sick and busy I never felt I had the time or energy to do it properly. Teresa Nielsen Hayden has been talking about various forms of deceptive practices that sway a great many people, i.e. astroturf and so I was finally motivated enough to write this entry.

You should go and read it and then come back.

Scary, isn't it?

I can't stress enough how much this pissed us all off. We did flat out lie when asked if Cul was taking the poll by himself, after all even at his advanced age I am going to be suspicious of someone online who wants to know if my child is alone while he answers questions, so I am not exactly pure and clean here but I think we might have gotten a completely different set of questions if Cul and answered that a parent or guardian could see the questions.

I'm also now starting to wonder about other questions the Harris people routinely ask me. They ask me nearly every time if I think we are exposed to too much information. Are they trying to get me to think there is too much information available? I mean why ask me over and over? It's almost like they think by repeating it I will come to believe it.

The only thing encouraging about this whole experience is that when we looked at the charts for how other children were answering most of them did not want to smoke the cigarettes, did not think they sounded particularly appetizing and didn't think the FDA had said the cigarettes were safe.