Several weeks ago, Tobacco Business Magazine reported on the more than 125 health organizations that were putting pressure on various social media platforms to address the promotion of tobacco use and products on their respective sites [read more here]. Now some social media influencers are starting to feel the pressure as social media video platform YouTube begins to take on tobacco content on its site.
One popular YouTuber, Outlaw, described how some of his tobacco-related videos, were deleted by YouTube without warning.
“Me being one of the biggest social media influencers in the tobacco world, I have been hit pretty dang hard in the last couple weeks,” he says in a video posted on June 17, 2019. “It’s funny because [on] Twitter you’re allowed porn on there but if I have some picture that has to deal with tobacco, it gets taken down. Instagram, I’ve had just random stuff … I’ve had a picture of a dip can and then for some reason it got taken down because it got flagged.”
