Boston University study shows that 87% of e-cigarette brand promotional posts on Instagram violate FDA requirements

Boston University study shows that 87% of e-cigarette brand promotional posts on Instagram violate FDA requirements

A study by Boston University in the United States found that 87% of e-cigarette brand promotional posts on Instagram did not comply with FDA health warning requirements. FDA guidelines require that health risk warnings be placed above the posts, and the warning information area should not be less than 20% of the entire promotional material.

On September 13, scholars from Boston University in the United States published a new study on the academic website Jama Network, pointing out that most of the 2,071 promotional posts of 25 e-cigarette brands posted on Instagram violated FDA guidelines. The guidelines require that health risk warnings be placed above the posts, and the warning information area should not be less than 20% of the entire promotional material.

Traci Hong, a co-author of the study and a professor at Boston University, said,

"Social media is an open market, and many brands do not inform consumers of the hazards of these products when promoting these products."

Hong and her colleagues analyzed 2,071 e-cigarette brand posts posted on Instagram and used an artificial intelligence model for image recognition to check whether these posts contained the required warning information and whether the size of the warning information complied with legal regulations. The study found that only 13% of the posts met these two requirements.

According to the study, posts that follow FDA rules have lower engagement on Instagram than those that don't.

"People like or comment less on these posts that follow the rules, and they're thinking about whether these products are right for them - and that's the essence of health warnings."

As for the solution, Hong made it clear,

"I think social media companies should have policies that require the promotion of e-cigarette products to inform users of the dangers of tobacco."

At the time of this report, Instagram's parent company Meta had not responded to Fast Company's request for comment. But Hong doesn't just blame social media. She pointed out that e-cigarettes are designed to attract young users.

"You actually have a product that looks like technology, and we don't usually think of technology as harmful to us because we accept technology. But we need to let people know that these seemingly harmless things actually have real risks."