When it comes to ads related to guns and vaping, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have banned them. However, there used to be a loophole where companies who made these products could pay social media influencers to promote them in their posts, which is sort of an ad but done in a different manner.
This allowed these companies to skirt around the ban, but not anymore. Facebook and Instagram have announced that they will also be banning influencers from doing paid promotions for products related to weapons, tobacco, and vaping. The new rules are expected to come into effect in the coming weeks.
According to Instagram, this is the first time that they are implementing restrictions with regards to what kind of items that can be promoted as far as branded content is concerned. In a way, this is a long time coming as in the past, the platform has come under fire for allowing users to do promoted posts for all manner of product that some have deemed to be irresponsible.
Earlier this year, the company had also announced special restrictions with regards to promoted posts involving diet and cosmetic products to users under the age of 18. In the meantime, Instagram has also rolled out a bunch of new tools to help deter users from posting offensive captions and also to fight misinformation and fake news.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook and Instagram. Source: cnbc