With 300 million users worldwide and one-third estimated to be under the legal drinking age, alcohol industry watchdog, Marin Institute is raising a red flag on what effect excessive alcohol marketing on Facebook is having on these under age users.
Because of this, Marin Institute recommends that Facebook immediately take action by making three changes (outlined in an article published in the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice) that would likely hit the social network deep in the pocket. Here are the recommendations:
- Stop accepting paid advertisements for alcohol products
- Stop allowing alcohol-related Pages, Applications, Events and Groups
- Hire external monitors to enforce the new regulations
I don’t know what your thoughts are on this, but I can’t imagine Facebook jumping at the chance to do any of these. Not a single one.
Here’s a quote from Sarah Mart, MS, MPH, research and policy manager at Marin Institute and lead author of the article,
“Facebook started as a fun tool for college students to interact and connect, but it has morphed into yet another means for corporations to exploit its users, particularly youth. As Facebook continues to grow as the youth market’s social networking tool of choice, the alcohol industry’s influence on Facebook must not be underestimated.”
And a quote from co-author Jacob Mergendoller:
“The only way to protect youth and young adults from the incessant promotion of alcohol on Facebook is to remove all promotional content about alcohol. Eliminating exposure to this content is necessary if we are ever going to reduce serious alcohol-related harm among young people.”
Have you seen much alcohol advertising on Facebook? I can’t say that I have, but I don’t spend hours and hours on Facebook each day. I do remember blogger and author Chris Brogan’s post about Gun ads, that he wasn’t too fond of. I wonder if anti-gun groups are thinking along the lines of the Marin Institute.
At any rate, it sounds like this alcohol marketing could be a real issue.
You can read the entire article published in at globaldrugpolicy.org.
3 comments
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October 4, 2009 at 2:03 am
Arnaldo Queiroz Ribeiro Filho
I guess that depends on the person, but they could create a system to block ads for teen, and minors but they cant do anything about the personal profiles .
October 5, 2009 at 3:08 am
Natasha
Alcohol brands have pretty strict marketing codes, as does Facebook, and both Facebook and alcohol brands have strict measures in place to make sure that alcohol is not marketed towards teens under the Legal Purchase Age (LPA).
-All of the advertising is targeted, so alcohol ads won’t be served to under LPAs.
-All brand-owned alcohol fan pages have age-gating functionality, which means that no one under LPA will be able to become a fan.
So I wouldn’t say that alcohol is “marketed to teens” on Facebook.
However, I would say that teens are talking about alcohol on Facebook of their own accord, so the question is – can we/ do we censor this discussion on a free platform like Facebook??
January 6, 2010 at 8:57 pm
'Rei Steiner
Facebook has changed it’s policies now so that if you are under a certain age in a certain country, as -they- have determined, you can not view any alcohol related content.
This has become a little ridiculous — I do not promote underage drinking, but it happens. It will always happen. And ads on Facebook, or the lack there of, will not sway individuals either way on the subject.
Not to mention, hiding all mention of something is not the key to stopping it from being a problem. In fact, it does quite the opposite. Proper education on the effects and statistics regarding alcohol consumption is the best thing you could give a minor to prevent them from serious alcohol-related harm. I am not going to say that this will stop them all from underage drinking, but it will significantly reduce the likelihood of things such as alcohol poisoning and underage drinking and driving.
When will the day come that we start sweeping unfavorable things under the carpet, and bring them out into the light to show them for everything they really are?
More needs to be done to EDUCATE our youth about things. Don’t just say NO, say “This is why this is bad.” Lying and covering things up only entices youth, especially teens, to find things out on their own, usually in very unsafe manners. And this is not because of ads on Facebook… it is because of a severe lack of proper parenting and education in our schools.