Instagram postings disregard regulatory guidelines on the promotion
Instagram postings disregard regulatory guidelines on the promotion of vaping products. Silver NA, Bertrand A, Kucherlapaty P, et al. Examining influencer compliance with advertising regulations in branded vaping content on Instagram. Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 9;10:1001115. Authors examined Instagram posts for compliance with existing regulatory guidelines. They went one step further in adding “explicitly branded content” by “known hirable entities” as criteria for inclusion.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9869128/
“On average, the 54 Instagram accounts had 265,851.9 followers (sd = 383,349.8) and 4,158 posts (sd = 7,302.1). Most posts featured vaping products, 239 (91.2%), with 186 (76.2%) posts being unambiguously branded vape advertisements and 31 (14.3%) even including purchase links in the post itself.”
This study highlights the “need for better-defined parameters for identifying commercial content subject to regulatory enforcement.”
Comment: This study illustrates how commercial vaping interests use influencers on the popular Instagram platform to promote vaping products. Regulatory enforcement on many electronic platforms is absent or inadequate, and this study illustrates the lack of enforcement of electronic cigarette promotions and sales online.
Stephen Hamann
