A lefty friend was upset about advertisers who "sell us shit we don't need." To use a technical marketing term, demand "agitation." This has, of course, been a common left-wing complaint for at least a century.
My response is, look, we're all old enough to know that humans use persuasion. They do it at work, at play, in romance, in child-raising, everything in-between. The ancients called it rhetoric, today we call it marketing or politics. You may not like it but -- unless you've got a secret stash of angels -- the only way to police persuasion is by handing guns to another bunch of guys who, ironically, also used persuasion to acquire those guns.
So take your pick: liars without guns who you're free to ignore or refute, or liars with guns who you're compelled to obey and support. In the real world, those are the only 2 choices.