Tobacco industry exploiting International Womens Day on social media

The Twitter accounts of two of the world’s largest tobacco companies, @InsidePMI (Philip Morris International) and @BATPress (British American Tobacco) posted multiple tweets in March 2019 celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) and the International Week of Women, using the hashtags #IWD2019 and #BalanceForBetter (see figures 1–3). #BalanceForBetter was the official campaign theme of IWD 2019, which aims to ‘build a gender-balanced world’.1 This hashtag was used to amplify IWD content on social media.

Figure 1

Philip Morris International tweet dated 04 March 2019 using the hashtags #BalanceForBetter and #IWD2019. IWD, International Women’s Day.

Figure 2

Philip Morris International tweet dated 06 March 2019 using the hashtags #BalanceForBetter and #IWD2019. IWD, International Women’s Day.

Figure 3

British American Tobacco tweet dated 08 March 2019 using the hashtags #BalanceForBetter and #IWD2019. BAT, British American Tobacco; IWD, International Women’s Day.

These tweets draw…

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