What to do when tobacco advertisers exploit antitobacco social media campaigns to sell tobacco

Public health antitobacco campaigns on social media reach a broad audience and can foster public engagement in active conversations that are not possible with traditional media channels such as television or radio.1 This new level of engagement, however, brings added challenges, chiefly the potential to lose control of a message. For instance, antitobacco campaigns can be attacked by counter-campaigns that can dilute and overwhelm a public health campaign’s message,2 with perhaps the most notable counter-campaign being Not Blowing Smoke which attacked the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) campaign Still Blowing Smoke.3

In some cases, however, social media comments on public health campaigns can go beyond just a clash of opposing viewpoints and seek to exploit the targeted advertising exposure purchased by the health department to advertise tobacco. In a recent example, a hookah and vape lounge owner used an antihookah campaign on Facebook to…

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