this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
955 points (99.5% liked)

World News

38531 readers
1823 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The difference is popular conception. Laws aren't set based on science. They're set based on what enough people believe. People believe energy drinks are worse and thus they get regulated whether or not it's true.

Advertising, audience, and stereotypes play a part in this too. Coffee is stereotypically consumed by older people, whereas energy drinks are often younger people (who older people find annoying). Coffee also has a much greater social acceptance that would make it controversial to regulate. End result is that it's popular to limit energy drinks but unpopular to point out that coffee has far more caffeine.

[–] uis@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Laws aren't set based on science.

That is big problem in our societies.

[–] TrustingZebra@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's a weird trend. Products that are popular with youth and "seem" un-healthy get banned by populistic laws, despite limited evidence proving them actually being un-healthy.

The other prominent example I can think is vaping. I don't even vape, but it's weird to see it demonized as much as cigarettes, when the evidence for it being as harmful is very limited.