Big Tobacco Tries to Influence Public Opinion Online

Summary:

• The tobacco industry is promoting its addictive products on social media platforms and millions of people around the world under the age of 18 are seeing this content.
• Content portraying heated tobacco products, e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches in a positive light on social media re-normalizes the tobacco industry and nicotine use.
• The tobacco industry and its allies have used social media to attempt to influence important tobacco control policy debates in favor of the industry.

Tobacco companies are funding news websites and researchers to publish information that boosts their reputation and promotes their products. Even when tobacco companies pay to publish this content, it can be hard to tell that it’s linked to the tobacco industry and its interests, potentially misleading audiences into thinking the content is independent.

That’s not the industry’s only digital strategy. It also uses social media platforms to spread its insidious influence. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) have let tobacco companies directly reach their target audiences.

These calculated industry tactics, if successful, threaten to hook more young people on addictive, harmful products and influence policy debates in favor of a deadly industry.

The tobacco industry uses social media to reach and hook young users

The industry has an extensively documented record of saturating social media with tobacco- and nicotine-related content, often targeted at young people.

This content appears in many forms, including photos and graphics on official brand accounts, influencer promotions, online games, video series and more that directly or indirectly promote tobacco industry products. Regardless of format, it supports one common goal: Portray industry products in an exciting, positive light.

Research has shown that the industry’s social media marketing is reaching millions of people under the age of 18 around the world.

A 2023 report from Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found that social media marketing for British American Tobacco (BAT)’s nicotine pouch, Velo, was viewed by more than 10 million teens under 18; marketing for BAT’s e-cigarette, Vuse, was seen by 4.3 million teens under 18; and marketing for Philip Morris International (PMI)’s heated tobacco product, IQOS, was seen by nearly 2 million teens under 18.

In some areas, industry social media content reaches an even younger market. A 2022 Canary report examining e-cigarette marketing on social media in Indonesia found that at least half of adolescents in the country aged 13-15 had seen tobacco marketing online.

Much of this content follows the same playbook that Big Tobacco used to hook millions of people on cigarettes. While the industry often couches nicotine pouches, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products to policymakers and media as “reduced risk” compared to smoking, online marketing rarely positions them as ways to reduce harm. These products are often portrayed as popular, fun and sleek, associating them with an exciting lifestyle (picture: a sleek-looking pink heated tobacco product on a table next to a color-coordinated drink and matching lipstick). These products are also often aligned with music, the arts, sports and travel.

Exposure to this content causes harm. This content increases young people’s likelihood of trying these products and normalizes the presence of the tobacco industry and its addictive products in digital spaces.

While the industry knows social media is a proven way to reach some of its youngest audiences, it also uses these platforms to influence an older audience: policymakers.

Big Tobacco uses social media to try to influence policy debates

The tobacco industry is a known critic of the global treaty to reduce tobacco use, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). In accordance with the treaty, WHO has a strict policy of non-engagement with the industry.

Since this prevents the industry from participating in any FCTC meetings, such as the Conference of the Parties (COP), the industry and its allies take to the internet to amplify their narratives against it. After years of interference and attempts by tobacco companies and their allies to influence the debates and decisions at COP, this has become so pervasive that, in 2025, WHO issued an alert to Parties warning them to “stay vigilant” against the industry’s targeting of COP.

After COP8 in 2018, researchers examined more than 9,000 tweets and retweets that used the official COP hashtag. They found that about one-fifth were from accounts linked to the tobacco industry. They appeared to be trying to influence government officials, primarily around the industry’s definition of “harm reduction,” which often centers on loosening regulations around newer industry products.

At COP9, tobacco industry allies used social media to disparage WHO, COP and the FCTC. At COP10, an industry ally used Facebook to promote pro-e-cigarette and anti-WHO petitions and at COP11, another industry ally made posts on social media about “embracing harm reduction” and promoting e-cigarette use.

The industry also amplifies its policy priorities on social media using astroturf groups and promoting content shared by allies. Astroturf groups are linked to the tobacco industry but look like grassroots groups that support or oppose a policy.

Tobacco content on social media puts young people at risk

Digital tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship regulations, even where they have been introduced, typically have not caught up to developments in the real world. Meanwhile, online content promoting the industry and its products is reaching and influencing young people. This content can be harder to track and can digitally cross borders, potentially violating laws in other jurisdictions.

But a promising tool is being used to track and report industry marketing online. Vital Strategies’ Canary is a service that monitors tobacco marketing on social media and news sites, and is helping policymakers understand the scale of the problem.

Two other tools that can help users identify attempted industry interference in policy debates on social media include STOP’s Tobacco Industry Allies database and Tobacco Tactics’ lists of tobacco industry front groups, lobby groups and think tanks.

These resources allow anyone to see if an organization has links to the tobacco industry, bringing much-needed transparency to the industry’s online tactics.