International Youth Day: WHO gives young people a voice to denounce tobacco industry tactics

On the occasion of International Youth Day on 12 August, the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with Good Governance for Tobacco Control (GGTC), the Secretariat of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Global Youth Voices (GYV), and Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance (STPA), are organising a webinar to present and promote digital solutions and the use of artificial intelligence to counter tobacco industry tactics on digital media.

The webinar will also announce the winners of the 2024 Global Media Competition (Global Media Competition) organized by WHO and GGTC. The competition asked people under the age of 35 to make short videos for social media exposing the tobacco industry's deceptive tactics and highlighting effective measures that protect children from its harmful influence. About 100 young people from 50 countries submitted a video.

Many international and regional tobacco control organizations, such as Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), Alliance for Tobacco Control in Africa (ACTA), National Committee Against Tobacco (CNCT), SmokeFree Partnership (SFP), Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and Swiss Association for Tobacco Control AT Suisse, are supporting this event.

Youth involvement necessary to fight tobacco epidemic

International Youth Day, celebrated annually on 12 August, recognizes and promotes the significant role played by young people in global development. This year’s theme, “From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development,” highlights the crucial link between digitalization and the acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasizing the essential role of youth in this transformation.

Strengthening the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is specifically mentioned in Sustainable Development Goal 3a, but concrete efforts in tobacco control also overlap and influence virtually all other Sustainable Development Goals. While youth-focused digital solutions have transformative potential to advance sustainable development, in contrast, the tobacco industry is exploiting digital platforms, in an unregulated manner, to advertise its nicotine products to young people and reach new audiences. In response, COP10 of the WHO FCTC adopted additional guidance on Article 13 to extend the ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship to digital media platforms and calls on Parties to collaborate to act on cross-border advertising.

For WHO and its partners, International Youth Day offers a unique opportunity to present and promote digital solutions proposed by young people to counter the manoeuvres of the tobacco industry.

Raising awareness among young people about the deceptive practices of the tobacco industry

WHO notes that the tobacco industry has been targeting young people for decades to recruit new consumers. Recently, this has been done through collaborative campaigns with influencers, social media, music festivals and others, and by marketing new nicotine products such as heated tobacco, vaping products and nicotine pouches with a variety of attractive flavours. Through this competition, WHO and its partners aim to raise awareness of the many harmful effects of the tobacco industry's activities and advocate for effective policies to reduce tobacco use worldwide.

Participants were asked to produce short videos for social media exposing these industry practices, with an emphasis on a “for youth by youth” approach. There are several prize categories with rewards of up to 5,000 $ for the grand prize winner:

• The video that best exposes tobacco industry interference by interpreting data from the 2023 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index;
• The video that truly represents the “for youth, by youth” message about the dangers of tobacco industry tactics;
• The video that highlights the role of the tobacco industry in promoting toxic pollution;
• The video that best highlights the need to protect children from tobacco industry tactics to preserve their respiratory health;
• And finally, the video that effectively presents government policies and practices aimed at protecting young people from tobacco industry tactics.

The videos are submitted to expert juries and public voting on social networks. About twenty finalists have been pre-selected and their videos can be viewed at this link: https://ggtc.world/actions/global-media-competition/entries/

To register for the webinar (August 12, 2024 – 2 p.m.)

©Generation Without Tobacco

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