Study: Pro-vaping Content on Social Media Outweighs Anti-vaping Content

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Communications shows that the amount of content promoting e-cigarettes on Instagram outnumbers the amount of counter-propaganda, including FDA campaign hashtags, by a ratio of 10,000 to 1, reports Vapingpost.

The study, titled “ #Vape: Measuring the Impact of E-Cigarettes on Instagram through Deep Learning and Text Analytics ” suggests that the FDA's “True Cost” awareness campaigns have had little success in discouraging youth from smoking.

The unusual campaign, dubbed “irreverent” by FDA officials, was launched in 2018 to spread the message that while e-cigarettes release addictive nicotine, the toxins in e-cigarettes can have unintended health effects.

Former FDA Commissioner Scott? Dr. Gottlieb said in the release, “We are acting on a very clear science that the epidemic is spreading. ”. “The data we have shows a disturbing spike in the number of teens using e-cigarettes just in the last year. ”

To conduct the current study, researchers at UC Berkeley's Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment (CIRCLE) analyzed 245,894 Instagram posts before and after the launch of the #TheRealCost campaign. In addition, the research team interviewed five e-cigarette influencers and eight social media users who were college students.

Study author Julia & middot; Vassey (Julia Vassey) said: & ldquo; U.S. public health officials have consistently called the ground ah what about you among teens an epidemic and have invested a great deal of effort in trying to stop the epidemic by introducing anti-e-cigarette campaigns. But this gross imbalance in the number of posts has led to the FDA's message being drowned out by marketing from e-cigarette brands. ”

Vassey added that Instagram was chosen as the most popular marketing platform and was therefore selected.Vassey explained, “We focused on Instagram because no shortage of influential influencers we interviewed for this study viewed Instagram as their most important social media marketing platform. ”

“Based on the results, the FDA's anti-e-cigarette campaign was not very popular, and we saw comments from Instagram users objecting to the FDA's claim that nicotine damages health effects and calling it propaganda for the campaign. ”

Meanwhile, in the UK, advertising regulator the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered tobacco company British American Tobacco (BAT) to stop advertising its e-cigarettes from any public accounts on Instagram not long ago.

The decision came after the organization investigated seven Instagram posts at the prompting of a number of health organizations, including Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and Stop Tobacco organizations and products.

In the complaint, it was alleged that British American Tobacco was using models under the age of 25 to promote its products, which is banned in the UK. “Preventing tobacco companies from using social media to advertise to young people in the UK and around the world is a big step forward with the ASA ruling,” said Mark Hurley, international communications director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.