"The researchers examined ENDS-related Instagram posts in December 2023, using a simulated 14-year-old female's profile to search hashtags such as #vapelife, #vapecommunity, and #ecig. The team reviewed 51 posts from these hashtags to assess the presence of health-related warnings and common themes." - Direct Quote from the article

It's not marketing if people are searching hashtags.

Yea that's kinda wild

"We searched for these terms and suddenly we had posts that related to them!"

This isn't news. Well, the Instagram part is.

Juul paid schools to have sessions where vaping was described as safe.

Ad agencies got campaign briefs describing the target segment as 13-17 year olds.

Most of this has already come out, in courts.

It’s one thing to market to adults, but targeting teens is just plain wrong. Some people might argue that if teens are searching for these hashtags themselves, it's not technically marketing. But we all know how influential social media is, especially on teens. As someone who's seen my friend's kid fall into the vaping trap during high school, I wish this content was more regulated.

> It’s one thing to market to adults, but targeting teens is just plain wrong.

Who do you think the target audience of Meta, Google, Apple, Bytedance and Microsoft is ?

Literally everybody, and likely adults more than teens, since adults usually have more money.

If that's not bad enough, big tobacco is still big in the global South.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/how-children-a...