{"id":797840,"date":"2026-07-13T16:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/797840\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T16:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:01:12","slug":"australia-banned-vape-ads-more-than-two-years-ago-so-why-are-they-still-all-over-social-media-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/797840\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia banned vape ads more than two years ago \u2013 so why are they still all over social media? | Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illegal vape sellers have turned to social media to promote nicotine-filled products, with experts calling for a crackdown including stronger penalties for the platforms.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia has identified a network of posts across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube promoting the sale of illegal products to Australian audiences.<\/p>\n

The accounts posted promotional content offering to sell viewers popular vape brands, distributed from \u201clocal\u201d stock held in Australian warehouses with express shipping, often claiming delivery within days.<\/p>\n

In most cases, the accounts directed viewers to place orders via private messages or guided them to encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

There are similarities between many of the posts, including use of the same vision and editing techniques, suggesting a degree of coordination across the platforms. Some content also appeared to be AI-generated.<\/p>\n

In some instances, content has been boosted on TikTok as paid advertising.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said it was aware of thousands of similar posts, and was taking \u201cstrong and sustained\u201d action to remove them.<\/p>\n

Australia has some of the world\u2019s toughest anti-vaping laws. Introduced in 2024, the laws banned the advertising of vapes<\/a> across all media platforms, including social media.<\/p>\n

The TGA, which enforces the rules, said it \u201cwas aware of vaping goods being illegally promoted for sale through different online forums\u201d.<\/p>\n

Between January 2024 and June 2026, it said it had \u201cremoved over 8,500 unlawful vape advertising posts from social media and redirected more than 390 websites unlawfully advertising vaping goods\u201d. It has also issued more than 90 infringement notices, resulting in more than $1.5m in fines.<\/p>\n

The TGA said it \u201ctook signals of non-compliance seriously\u201d and \u201cworked closely with online platforms to deter and address alleged unlawful advertising\u201d.<\/p>\n

But despite the current laws, Prof Becky Freeman, a public health researcher at the University of Sydney, said the content was \u201cso blatant, they\u2019re not even bothering to hide it\u201d.<\/p>\n

A TikTok video shows vapes for sale. Photograph: TikTok<\/p>\n

She said the posts continued to appear because accountability sat largely with individual sellers, rather than the platforms.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n

Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n

Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Freeman called for \u201cenforcement at the platform level as well as the individual ad level\u201d, adding that \u201cthese platforms aren\u2019t doing the job that they promised they would do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than just this approach where we take these ads down \u2026 that whack-a-mole approach \u2026 the platforms themselves should be fined for allowing this content to go up in the first place,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n

TikTok, Instagram and YouTube each confirmed the identified content violated their community guidelines.<\/p>\n

A TikTok spokesperson said accounts posting such material were in violation of rules that \u201cprohibit trading, marketing, or providing access to tobacco, drugs, and other regulated substances\u201d.<\/p>\n

The platform also said it was \u201cconstantly working to proactively identify, review, and remove content that violates our policies\u201d, and urged users who saw \u201ca video or account they believe shouldn\u2019t be on TikTok \u2026 to report it in-app\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Meta spokesperson said it also encouraged users \u201cto report items that may breach our rules so we can review and take the appropriate action\u201d.<\/p>\n

YouTube said the site \u201cprohibited content that aims to directly sell, link to, or facilitate access\u201d to illegal products and services. They said this rule also applied to content in a video\u2019s description, comments, live streams, external links and verbal directions to users.<\/p>\n

In their responses, the three platforms said they had banned or terminated the accounts identified by Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n

Accounts that had posted the vape content did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illegal vape sellers have turned to social media to promote nicotine-filled products, with experts calling for a crackdown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-797840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}