THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: TOBACCO giants are using Facebook to subvert bans and international conventions against cigarette advertising, a study by University of Sydney researchers published in the British Medical Journal has found.
''We have gathered here to pay homage to Lucky Strike, the bestest cigarette in the whole widest world,'' says one Facebook page administered by an employee of the tobacco company RJ Reynolds highlighted by the study.
Other Lucky Strike pages, one with tens of thousands of members, had images of old and new tobacco ads and various Lucky Strike tobacco products and merchandise. The report also found employees of British American Tobacco Australia had established similar pages.
In a statement BAT Australia's managing director, David Crow, said: ''It's absolutely not our policy to use social networking sites such as Facebook to promote our tobacco product brands. To do so could breach local advertising laws.
''Our rules mean that employees should not post branded material on social networking sites, blog sites, chat forums or other 'user-generated content' sites such as YouTube - whatever the intention in posting the material may be.''
The statement said ''if we find group employees have posted material that they shouldn't, perhaps out of naivety, we will be telling them to remove it''. >>> Nick O’Malley Investigations | Saturday, April 24, 2010
