Facebook has become saturated with official and unofficial alcohol marketing, in a trend health experts say is exposing young people to relentless promotion of binge drinking.
Alcohol brands have an average of 75,000 fans across 11 Australian-based official Facebook pages, but some have up to 50 times that in unofficial pages set up by ”fans”.
An analysis by University of Wollongong researchers has found even some of the official Facebook pages appear to have promoted excessive drinking, while the unofficial pages are far worse.
”In some cases it’s appalling,” said lead researcher Sandra Jones, director of the university’s Centre for Health Initiatives. ”I think sometimes as parents or a community we are very concerned about our child’s friends in the real world, but we’re not aware of some of the ‘friends’ they have online that can be quite harmful.”
Marketing on official alcohol company Facebook pages included posts that suggested drinking early in the morning, positive depictions of huge numbers of empty alcohol containers, and a giveaway for a ”year’s supply of beer”.
The latter turned out to be only for a cash-equivalent, although the terms and conditions stated a year’s supply was a case a week, an amount massively in excess of safe drinking guidelines.
Professor Jones said Facebook and alcohol companies needed to crack down on fan-based pages, which reflected dangerous attitudes towards drinking among some in the community.
