Advertising is a process of introducing a good or service in order to promote among the public. The target of this advertising is to use the good or service for behalf of having profit for the owner. This activity may be material (for example, selling a good or providing a service) or to serve a community or the world (such as advertising to prevent infection with a new virus or how to prevent dangerous event).
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), taking benefits from media tools to promote goods and services is increasing day by day, and the emergence of social media, which provides opportunity for any user to advertise through accounts or pages for marketing and selling goods and services, has increased advertising.
“Media responsibility and punishment for violators”
The Advertising Law in the Kurdistan Region has issued several responsibilities on the media and social networks, such as:
Quality and Technical Responsibility: in the point (5) of Article (2) states that: “The brightness of electronic street advertising screens shall not exceed 5000 lumens (lumens/m2) during the day and more than 200 lumens (lumens/m2) at night).” This requirement aims to regulate the brightness and colors of advertisements so as not to cause annoyance to citizens, or the light does not damage other signs and advertisements.
National Responsibility: The media are obliged to publish awareness advertisements on various issues related to the service of citizens, as stated in the point (6) of Article (2) of the law: In order to protect human rights and women, broadcast free of charge, for television from (1 minute to 4 minutes) within (24) hours of broadcast”.
Criminal responsibility: Advertising, like any media message, is subject to intentional or unintentional tearing, distortion, removal and deletion.
To punish those who cause this violation, Article (4) of the Advertising Law provides for several measures of accountability and punishment for violators.
According to the second point of Article (4), any person who damages an advertisement (provided that there is a legal complaint) is considered a crime. In this point anyone who violate will punish as bellow:
1- A fine not less than (250.000) dinars and not more than (1.000.000) one million dinars.
2. Obligation to repair and replace the advertisement as it is.
3. Compensation of the casualties.
The public should try to protect peace and loveliness of society when they see any inappropriate advertising, through electronic reporting and notifying the legal institutions, for example, advertising for dealing with: (weapons, illegal drugs, espionage equipment, fake documents and certificates …), which make risk for all the communities. It requires continuous cooperation and coordination of the public, legal institutions, security agencies and police, so that advertising does not become a tool to harm human dignity and peace in society.
The media as their professional duty, any advertising that are harmful goods and articles make a deep investigation in order to raise awareness and encourage the public prosecutor to conduct legal prosecution.
Legal responsibilities of advertising in media and social networks
