#PuffBar: how do top videos on TikTok portray Puff Bars?

Since 2 January 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration banned sales of all flavoured (other than menthol or tobacco) pod-mod e-cigarettes, like JUUL, that appeal to youth.1 However, the finalised policy exempted disposable e-cigarettes such as Puff Bar, Posh, Eon Stik, Mr. Vapor and other brands that are illegally introduced into the market and gaining popularity among youth.2 The objective of this Industry Watch article is to describe how Puff Bar e-cigarettes, a leading disposable e-cigarette brand among youth,3 are portrayed on the popular Beijing-based video-sharing social media platform TikTok.4 Unlike other major e-cigarette companies, information on the ownership of the Puff Bar company is unclear.5 We focused on TikTok specifically because 60% of the platform’s 26.5 million active users in the USA in 2019 were between the ages of 16 and 24.6 TikTok’s user guidelines prohibit the posting of ‘content that depicts minors consuming, possessing, or suspected of consuming alcoholic beverages, drugs, or tobacco’.7 However, on other social media such as Facebook, enforcement of such policies to restrict promotion of tobacco products is lacking.8 Information on the …