Shanghai may regulate annoying taxi ads over visual, audio pollution

City Weekend brings us murmurs that the Shanghai government may soon crack down on those taxi televisions that broadcast ads nonstop (with nary an off button in sight). Declarations by the local government and officials from the World Expo Environment Improvement campaign hinted that taxi commercials could fall into the category of visual and audio pollution.

Touchmedia, the company responsible for the panels, is currently working with five of the big six taxi companies in the city. When asked about the possible regulations, they told the magazine, "We have fully censorship-trained in-house staff, and we're fanatical about vetting our advertisements."

Miss the point much? We think inappropriate content is probably pretty low on the list of problems the general public has with the ads. "If I have to look at vapid models extolling the virtues of the latest H&M collection one more time, I think I'm going to blow my brains out," is most likely a little closer to the top.

Even better, Touchmedia CEO Micky Fung insisted that "An independent study found that 92 percent of the passengers interact with the unit, and more often than not, people enjoy the commercials." How many of those 92 percent interacting with the unit were muting it, do you think?