Addressing the accountability gap: gambling advertising and social media platform responsibilities

Christine Parker, César Albarrán-Torres , Casey Briggs, Jean Burgess, Nicholas Carah, Mark Andrejevic, Daniel Angus, Abdul Obeid

Research output: Contribution to journalComment / DebateOtherpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

This commentary reports on gambling advertisements served to Australians on Facebook in 2021-2022 that we discovered through a research project that uses novel data donation infrastructure to improve the observability of platform-based advertising. Preliminary findings show that advertisements for online casinos appear on social media and are served to people tagged as located in Australia despite laws that prohibit both the operation and advertising of these gambling services in Australia, and in apparent contravention of company policies that require gambling advertisers to follow applicable law. We outline the harms of normalizing gambling on digital media and argue that the limited accountability of digital platforms for online advertising can contribute to these harms. We suggest ways in which the law and its enforcement and platform responsibility can be reformed to prevent harmful gambling advertising.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)312-318
Number of pages7
JournalAddiction Research & Theory
Volume32
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • Facebook
  • gambling advertisements
  • Online advertising
  • online casinos
  • regulation of advertising
  • social media

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