Instagram bans influencers from promoting vaping, tobacco, and firearms

In the very near future, your Instagram feed should become a lot less clogged with vaping posts. The news comes after Instagram announced on December 18 that influencers would now be banned from promoting "vaping, tobacco products, and weapons."

The policy is actually not new for the photo-sharing service, but Instagram now says it will begin enforcing the policy on branded content in the "coming weeks."

Additionally, branded content that promotes alcohol and diet supplements will now require "special restrictions", but that won't go into effect until next year. Currently, Instagram is working on tools to "help creators comply with these new policies" such as ways to restrict users who can view the posts based on age. This ties into the changes it made December 5 where it now requires users to enter their age upon signing up.

Along with cracking down on which products influencers can push, Instagram is also opening up new ways for them to find brands to work with. To do this, it is giving a select group of creators access to the Facebook Brand Collabs Manager.

Creators in Brand Collabs Manager can also search for like-minded brands looking to partner on content creation. They can source new deals, manage partnerships, and automatically share insights with them (before this, many creators could only send brands screenshots of their analytics).

We've also made it possible for brands to see insights when they're tagged in branded content in both Brand Collabs Manager and the Instagram app. Because influencer networks remain a critical part of branded content, we'll continue to support their access to the Instagram Graph API.

On top of searching for brands to work with, it also provides tools to share insights and engagements with brands. Previously, creators would have to share screenshots with brands, but this makes it much easier.

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