YouTube Forces New Restrictions on Vape Content Creators 

Content creators on YouTube are being forced to either label any pro-vaping content as “harmful & dangerous” or face warnings and possibly channel cancellations.

A new episode on RegWatch discusses new steps taken by YouTube, where vape content creators risk having their entire channels deleted if they share any vape content without the required new and fundamentally inaccurate warnings.

As far back as 2018 it was reported that several YouTube reviewers of vaping products were having their content removed and in some cases their channels deleted. Such measures have been prompted by the ongoing initiatives to block any vape marketing that may be enticing to minors.

At the time, the New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) had explained that it had already successfully fought for the right of vape reviewers, to be able to continue sharing their opinions and insights with fellow vapers when the TPD was threatening a ban on marketing across borders.

The link between tobacco marketing and vaping
Meanwhile, a review of 29 previously published peer reviewed studies, found that exposure to tobacco and vaping products on social media leads to increased consumption. Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the study consisted of an analysis of surveys from over 139,000 participants across a number of studies, who belonged to different age groups, nationalities and social media platforms. The analysed responses indicated that people who viewed social media with tobacco content were more likely to report consuming the products.

“We [cast] a wide net across the tobacco and social media literature and synthesized everything into a single association summarizing the relationship between social media exposure and tobacco use,” said study author Scott Donaldson, a senior research associate at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “What we found is that these associations are robust and have public health implications at the population level.”