Instagram is used to share photos of your travel, what you’ve eaten, what you’ve done, who you’ve met, and so on. It can also be used as advertising where popular Instagrammer advertise products they use so that their followers will see it. In some ways it’s more effective than standard ads as these are people you actively choose to follow.
That being said, celebrity Kim Kardashian has gotten into some hot water with the FDA recently. Kardashian had apparently advertised some pills on her Instagram page (see screenshot above). The pills in question are for morning sickness as Kardashian is currently pregnant. Sounds innocent enough, right?
However what the FDA took offense to was the fact that she made the pills sound safer than it really was. According to the FDA, they claim that the post “misleadingly fails to provide material information about the consequences that may result from the use of the drug and suggests that it is safer than has been demonstrated.”
The FDA also notes that the pills had not been tested for use with hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness. This means that expectant mothers who are suffering from that might think that the pills she’s endorsing could be a cure-all, and because it has not been tested, the side-effects could have been dangerous. In the meantime to avoid digging herself into a deeper hole, Kardashian has since deleted her post.