‘Why Did You Order Candy?’
Page Dobbs, thanks for coming in.
Page Dobbs: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
HY: Okay. First things first. Can you walk us through the findings of your latest paper?
PD: Sure. So, this study was actually an exploration of TikTok videos. For this particular one we ended up not actually looking at all the videos, which sometimes we do. But in this one we looked at the hashtag and written comment that came along with these. The reason for that is it’s easier to find and search. And so agencies like the FDA could use these findings a little bit easier. So, what we did is we created, through a systematic approach, content categories that we repetitively saw in these videos, and we created things that we saw, such as people identifying as a small business. The country of origin was listed as metadata. Whether they mentioned a brand or if it was cannabis vaping products that were being used. Or if they used language to indicate that they would hide or bundle the product with other types of products. And some other language that came from the article. One really important piece is that two of the authors – the other authors on the paper – were actually students. One was a PhD student; one was an undergraduate student. And this part I felt was really important for social media research because young audiences use social media differently than myself. I’m in my mid-30s and there is some language that I might not interpret. One of the things that one of the students noticed is some of the authors were using language such as ‘fake’ or ‘this is not real.’ And what they were doing is they’re getting around TikTok’s algorithm that would typically detect this as illegal activity and pull the video down. And so we found that in 8% of the videos people were doing this.
HY: And what were you finding? I mean, I understand you looked at Tik Tok videos, but what were you looking at them for?
PD: So, we found some hashtags where people were using in a specific community that they’re selling e-cigarettes online. And they’re hiding them within other products. So, when they’re selling these to someone it appears to be marketed to those who… maybe their parents or someone in their household would not want them purchasing the e-cigarette, so they hide it inside another product like candy, or it might be a scrunchie in some beauty products. And when somebody else opens the package, they think, ‘Oh, you bought beauty products’ and they hand the package over to their adolescent in their home, not realizing that they’ve handed them a package of e-cigarettes.
HY: So you said this is primarily prevalent on TikTok.
PD: TickTok. But what we noticed is people were also directing their followers or people to other websites or to Instagram and other social media. So what this is likely doing is this is an interplay of several social media platforms that are doing something similar. Given the video content that’s displayed on TikTok, it made it easy for us to find, but this likely exists on other platforms.
HY: So to be clear, you found a pattern of companies that are targeting minors and they’re emphasizing – or at least one of their marketing strategies is – “we’re going to hide it so that nobody knows, or your parents aren’t going to know, what’s in it?”
PD: Yeah. And now a lot of these are self-identified small businesses. So, these are people out of their home who are doing this. And even some of the videos are showing them shipping a large number of packages. Others could be retailers who are getting around their typical sale of people, who are listing this and shipping this. But we did see as people were making videos, they make it hard to determine because they don’t show their face, but they show their hands putting together packages.
HY: So I guess my question is, you know, self-identified is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Do you feel reasonably confident that these are U.S. companies, or do you think there may be coming from overseas?
PD: So not everyone lists their location, but because we’re pulling this metadata from an API, we can find the country of origin from the video. So we did find that 27% were from the U.S. and 22% were from Canada. These could be coming from other countries, as well. But we do know that at least these percentages are coming from the U.S. or Canada. Now, this is concerning to other countries because different countries have different tobacco regulations. So, in the U.K., you’re going to find that e-cigarette products have far less nicotine than those that are sold in the U.S. However, if they’re shipping internationally, which we found 6% of the videos indicated that they do, you could be getting nicotine content higher through the mail than you could at a retailer in the U.K.
HY: TikTok was sort of the focus of this. There are other platforms, and as we all know at this point, TikTok is being, you know, they’re going to force a sale. So, is this going to make a difference, or do you think it’s going to have any impact or what do you think?
PD: I don’t. And for a couple of reasons. If TikTok wasn’t going to exist, if it doesn’t exist, it will simply move to a different platform, which we did see people indicating to go to their Instagram account. So this content is also on other platforms. But also it continues to exist. This is simply a problem that isn’t being addressed by the platform because of ways that users are using it. By using this language that’s indicating that it’s fake content, that it wouldn’t pick up through an algorithm, no matter who owns the platform, this content will exist here or in other social media.
HY: So you mentioned this before, I’m going to guess I need some clarification because you said your students brought this to you about the fake content tag. I mean, what is the designation of that? What do they mean? Like, why wouldn’t TikTok care?
PD: Yeah. So, there are certain phrases or hashtags that get picked up by an algorithm. Some can be self-harm, some can be like illegal sales or things that violate their policies. That they indicate videos that they are not allowed to display. They flag those that then go to review by a board. They determine if this is brought down or if this is continued, or they can also just make it where it’s not heavily advertised or is searchable by people. They can make it difficult to search. When people are using these phrases, the algorithm, what they found is based on their policies, you’re allowed to do some things you can’t do explicitly. Like you couldn’t harm someone on TikTok, but you can act out. And as long as harm is not brought upon the person, the video is allowed to be displayed. You can pretend to sell these, but you can’t actually do it. And so what they’re trying to indicate is it doesn’t actually violate TikTok’s policies.
HY: It’s sort of like saying it’s satire in a way. They’re perceiving this is not being a real product for sale or something by having that label on it.
PD: Yeah, because the first level of review often comes from an algorithm as opposed to a person. When a person, a reasonable person, looks at this and sees the video, they know what they’re doing. They can see what’s happening. But an algorithm is going to detect language. So, that term “fake, not real” is going to allow it to skip over to the next video.
HY: A couple of questions. This may beyond the scope of your research, but do you have any sense of the scale of this? Sales numbers or anything like that that can kind of communicate, you know, how big of a problem this is?
PD: That wasn’t something that we looked at in this study. We did see videos that displayed hundreds of packages that they were emailing. So, we do think this is a large scale. If anything, this was exploratory research that now can be added to those who are doing survey research. There’s the National Youth Tobacco Survey could ask, “did you, you know, purchase through mail or, you know, a private user in that way?” There are ways that people could look at this from a broader scale to get more definitive answers. But for now, this at least was an exploratory study that said this is happening.
HY: So to be clear, it might violate policies, but you’re not aware of any legislation that would restrict them or doing anything like that, or are you?
PD: Yes. So there’s several laws that this violates. There’s something called the PACT Act and a few years ago the e-cigarettes were included as a part of the Deeming Act [Rule]. They are regulated by the FDA, but they were included in the PACT Act — meaning that you can’t sell e-cigarettes in the same way as cigarettes privately through the mail. So, what they would need to do is to disclose to their postal service, whoever they’re using. For example, if you go to USPS and you want to send something, they ask you, “Is there a battery, is there a lithium battery, or anything inside?” To mail these the way that they’re mailing them, they’re saying ‘no’ when in fact, yes there is. And so they’re going undetected. And the reason for that is that you can’t get online and buy a pack of cigarettes that’s mailed to your house. Even alcohol that ships. Some states have laws that alcohol can’t be shipped to your house, others that allow it. You have to sign as a signature for 21. These would then be subject to those same laws. So, if someone’s purchasing, even in states where you can purchase e-cigarettes and they‘re mailed to your house, you should be signing or someone above the age of 21 should be signing. These are absolutely not doing that. And the postal service is unaware that there’s an e-cigarette inside that package.
HY: Right Or, they’re tricking the parents into signing, right? By them not being aware of what’s in it.
PD: Yeah, that part would probably raise a red flag to a parent if they have to sign for something. And that’s why these are going through these self-identified small business owners or people out of their home who are selling these versus going to a retailer who would be subject to maybe licensure laws, for example. You might have to have a tobacco retail license in either your locality or your state. And that’s another law. So, these people are selling tobacco products without a license. That may be $100 a year for someone like a retailer to sell. But what that means is that during the course of that year, they could also be subject to an inspection or a sting operation where a youth comes in and attempts to purchase. Those are ways of accountability of enforcement that, again, these people are not going through because they don’t have a tobacco retail license and they’re not a retailer.
HY: Since your field is public health. I’m just going to go ahead and ask this question. But, you know, if someone is skeptical about the potential harm of teenagers using e-cigarettes, what would you tell them?
PD: A lot of times people say like, “oh, is this the same or better than cigarettes?” Well, there’s a lot of things that are better than cigarettes, so I wouldn’t want to get into that discussion. Just about anything’s better than smoking a cigarette. But what we do know is that we are starting to see research about the harms to your heart, in particular, and the brain, and the brain during development. And so what we’re seeing is people who are exposed to nicotine, which these e-cigarettes have a massive amount of content, that they’re having cognition issues with memory, with emotion regulation. And so at a time that youth already may have difficulty with these types of topics that they’re experiencing. We also see with nicotine use and dopamine responses, yes, you’re going to get this big rush of dopamine, which may make you feel good in that moment, but we see a drop after. And so over time, these youth aren’t getting the stimulation from things that they used to, and they’re not feeling the enjoyment. So it may appear over time that they are feeling more depressed and they’re seeking out this e-cigarette to get that enjoyment, when in fact their body’s just being trained to not get the same level of enjoyment from things that they used to.
HY: And just to be clear, weve talked a lot about tobacco, e-cigarettes, tobacco products, things like that. But marijuana and cannabis products are also being marketed in this way.
PD: Definitely. And yeah, we did see 45% of the videos included cannabis, either some emoji or language, or they were promoting or including cake bars. Parents who may hear this, they may look through a package and find that their youth does have – “if it says cake bar, she hits different” — that a cannabis. That’s a THC vape. I think that’s the biggest thing with this research is we hope to get information out to parents who may be handing packages over to their kids. If you open something and you say, “This is weird, why did you order candy? I would have gotten it for you at the store. Why did you order beauty products like we could have gone together and gotten that.” Instead, look a little bit deeper. Look inside the scrunchie, if there is one in there. Look inside the package of candy. There’s a good chance that there’s an e-cigarette hidden inside of it.
HY: All right. I think that’s probably a good place to end. Page Dobbs, thanks for coming in today.
PD: Thank you!
Matt McGowan: Short Talks from the Hill is now available wherever you get your podcast. For more information and additional podcasts, visit Arkansas Research UK asked Edu, the home of science and research news at the University of Arkansas. Music for Short Talks from the Hill was written and performed by local musician Ben Harris.
