Vice and Philip Morris Partner to Create Vaping "Documentaries" - and YouTube Provides the Assist

2 min read

Vice News partnered with Philip Morris to create pro-vaping content. More details are available in this thread, and via the Financial Times.

The "documentaries" are, of course, on YouTube. One sample documentary is called out in this thread.

When we go to YouTube to watch the video, we can see the recommendation algorithm kick in. I navigated through these videos while using Tor, and not logged in to Google, so these recommendations would not be affected by any account history.

YouTube's recommendation algorithm leads viewers to increasingly pro-vaping content. If we follow autoplay three times (to see a total of 4 videos), by the time we hit the 4th video, one of the top recommendations is for "5 Things Every New Vaper Must Know" which is just below "Stoner Compilation 2019." I'm not linking to these videos because I don't want to give them any direct exposure, but the screenshots of the trail are included below.

Video One - the Philip Morris and Vice Media production.

Video Two - top recommendation from Video One.

Video Three - top reccomentation from Video Two

Video Four - top reccomentation from Video Three

Video Five - the fourth recommendation from Video Four

Once a person clicks on the "5 Things Every New Vaper Must Know" we are firmly in the territory of vaping recommendations.

As noted above, Philip Morris and Vice teamed up to market vaping to youth. YouTube ensures that the "documentaries" produced by Vice lead people directly to more pro-vaping content.