| Summary: | E-cigarettes are promoted extensively on TikTok and other social media platforms. Platform
policies to restrict e-cigarette promotion seem insufficient and are poorly enforced. This paper aims to
understand how e-cigarettes are being promoted on TikTok and provide insights into the effectiveness
of current TikTok policies. Seven popular hashtag-based keywords were used to identify TikTok
accounts and associated videos related to e-cigarettes. Posts were independently coded by two trained
coders. Collectively, the 264 videos received 2,470,373 views, 166,462 likes and 3426 comments. The
overwhelming majority of videos (97.7%) portrayed e-cigarettes positively, and these posts received
98.7% of the total views and 98.2% of the total likes. A total of 69 posts (26.1%) clearly violated
TikTok’s own content policy. The findings of the current study suggest that a variety of predominantly
pro-vaping content is available on TikTok. Current policies and moderation processes appear to
be insufficient in restricting the spread of pro-e-cigarette content on TikTok, putting predominantly
young users at potential risk of e-cigarette use.
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