{"id":19830,"date":"2025-08-09T17:46:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T16:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=19830"},"modified":"2025-10-21T20:56:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T19:56:50","slug":"smoking-avatars-and-online-games-how-big-tobacco-targets-young-people-in-the-metaverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/08\/smoking-avatars-and-online-games-how-big-tobacco-targets-young-people-in-the-metaverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoking avatars and online games: how big tobacco targets young people in the metaverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Herschel Baker –\u00a0<\/b><\/span>Director Queensland Director,\u00a0<\/span>Drug Free Australia –\u00a0<\/span><\/b>03 August 2025\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Story by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

Avatars smoke in an image shared on social media of a gathering in the metaverse. A packet of Djarum LA cigarettes, an Indonesian brand, sit on the table. Photograph: iceperience.id Instagram via Canary\u00a9\u00a0Photograph: iceperience.id Instagram via Canary<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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In the image, a group of friends is standing in a bar, smoke winding upwards from the cigarettes in their hands. More lie in an open packet on the table between them. This is not a photograph taken before smoking bans, but a picture shared on social media of a gathering in the metaverse.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Virtual online spaces are becoming a new marketing battleground as tobacco and alcohol promoters target young people without any legislative consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

A report shared at the World Conference on Tobacco Control last month in Dublin\u00a0set out multiple examples\u00a0of new technologies being adopted to promote smoking and vaping, including tobacco companies launching digital tokens and vape companies sponsoring online games.<\/span><\/p>\n

It comes from a monitoring project known as\u00a0Canary\u00a0\u2013 because it seeks to act as the canary in a coalmine \u2013 run by the global public health organisation Vital Strategies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTobacco companies are no longer waiting for regulations to catch them up. They are way ahead of us. We are still trying to understand what we\u2019re seeing in social media, but they\u2019re already operating in unregulated spaces like the metaverse,\u201d says Dr Melina Magsumbol, of Vital Strategies India. \u201cThey\u2019re using NFTs [non-fungible tokens]. They\u2019re using immersive events to get our kids to come and see what they\u2019re offering.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In India, one tobacco company made and promoted an\u00a0NFT, which represents ownership of digital assets, to celebrate its 93rd anniversary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Canary scans for and analyses tobacco marketing on social media platforms and news sites in India, Indonesia and Mexico. It is expanding to more countries, including Brazil and China, and to cover alcohol and ultra-processed food marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Digital platforms are being used to bypass traditional advertising restrictions and target young audiences<\/span><\/p>\n

Melina Magsumbol, Vital Strategies India<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not set up to scan the metaverse \u2013 a three-dimensional, immersive version of the internet that uses technology such as virtual reality headsets to enable people to interact in a digital space. But it has picked up references to what is going on there via links and information shared on older social media sites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers say that children are likely to be exposed to any tobacco marketing in the new digital spaces given the age profile of users \u2013 more than half of the metaverse\u2019s active users are\u00a0aged 13 and below.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Social media companies have deep knowledge of how to drive engagement and keep people coming back for more views, says Dr Mary-Ann Etiebet, chief executive of Vital Strategies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you combine that with the experience and the knowledge of the tobacco industry on how to hook and keep people hooked \u2026 those two things together in a space that is unknown and opaque \u2013 that scares me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Zuckerberg, metaverse\u2019s prominent backer, says in future \u201cyou\u2019ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine\u201d there. Already, that includes shopping and attending virtual concerts.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Magsumbol describes it as \u201ca new battleground for all of us\u201d that is \u201cbeing taken over by corporate entities that actually push health-harming products\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter is very quiet, she\u2019s an introvert. But online, on [gaming platform] Roblox, when she is killing zombies and ghosts, she morphs into a different avatar \u2013 she\u2019s like Alexander the Great mixed with Bruce Lee and John Wick. She is so bloodthirsty,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnline we behave differently. Social norms change \u2026 the tobacco industry knows that very well. And it\u2019s so easy to subtly sell the idea that you can be anything, anyone you want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The metaverse art the team saw in Indonesia was shared on an Instagram account for electronic music lovers linked to Djarum, one of Indonesia\u2019s largest cigarette companies. Another example showed a group having coffee, and looking for a lighter.<\/span><\/p>\n

It all amounts to efforts to \u201cnormalise\u201d smoking and vaping, says Magsumbol. \u201cThis kind of behaviour is happening and being done by your avatars, but is it seeping into your real life?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDigital platforms are being used to bypass traditional advertising restrictions and target young audiences,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing here is not just a shift in marketing, it\u2019s a shift in how influence works.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Other researchers\u00a0have set out examples of alcohol being promoted and even sold in virtual stores.<\/span><\/p>\n

Online marketing is a global issue. At the same conference, Irish researchers shared findings that 53% of teenagers\u00a0saw e-cigarette posts daily\u00a0on social media.<\/span><\/p>\n

A World Health Organization official (WHO) says a rise in youth smoking in Ukraine is due, in part, to Covid and the war pushing children \u201ctoo much online\u201d and exposing them to marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0Vapes threaten to undo gains in tackling dangers of tobacco, health leaders warn<\/span><\/p>\n

In India, Agamroop Kaur, a youth ambassador at the\u00a0Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, includes social media marketing when speaking to schoolchildren about the dangers of tobacco and vaping. She has seen vapes suggested as a \u201cwellness\u201d item.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think educating youth on what an advertisement looks like, why it\u2019s false, how you might not even see that it\u2019s from the tobacco industry and it\u2019s [content posted by an] influencer is really powerful because then that builds a skill \u2013 so that when they\u2019re on social media, because they are digital natives, they\u2019re able to see all of that and know that it\u2019s fake and it\u2019s not something they should be attracted by. I think building those skills early from high school to middle school, and even younger, is really important.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control\u00a0requires countries to implement bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Last year,\u00a0signatories agreed\u00a0that action was needed to tackle the increasing focus on \u201cdigital marketing channels such as social media, which increases adolescent and young people\u2019s exposure to tobacco marketing\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there is no easy answer, says Andrew Black at the framework\u2019s secretariat.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge of regulating the internet is not a problem that\u2019s unique to tobacco. It\u2019s a real challenge for governments to think about how they can provide the protections that society is used to in a world where borders are broken down because of these technologies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nandita Murukutla, who oversees Canary, says regulators should take note: \u201cWhat starts out small and you ignore, rises up to a certain point when you\u2019ve got critical mass, and after that, it just explodes, and dialing something back is virtually impossible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Herschel Baker<\/span><\/p>\n

International Liaison,\u00a0<\/span>Director Queensland Director,\u00a0<\/span>Drug Free Australia –\u00a0<\/span>Web https:\/\/drugfree.org.au\/<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-au\/news\/other\/smoking-avatars-and-online-games-how-big-tobacco-targets-young-people-in-the-metaverse\/ar-AA1J2WHU?<\/span><\/p>\n

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by Herschel Baker –\u00a0Director Queensland Director,\u00a0Drug Free Australia –\u00a003 August 2025\u00a0 Story by Kat Lay, Global health correspondent Avatars smoke in an image shared on social media of a gathering in the metaverse. A packet of Djarum LA cigarettes, an Indonesian brand, sit on the table. Photograph: iceperience.id Instagram via Canary\u00a9\u00a0Photograph: iceperience.id Instagram via Canary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,68,59,130,134,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-drug-use-various-effects","category-nicotine","category-tobacco-smoking","category-vaping","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20123,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830\/revisions\/20123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}