The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that a tweet by Ladbrokes violated the UK’s regulations surrounding appealing to people under the age of 18.
The original tweet, posted by Ladbrokes in the aftermath of Jake Paul’s defeat to Tommy Fury, featured an image of the former YouTube star turned boxer.
Since Paul has a large following across social media, originally garnering fame by making videos for a young audience on YouTube, the ASA has concluded that the original post violated UK regulations.
Ladbrokes argued that the tweet, sent in February 2023, had no links to its site and that its Twitter feed was unavailable to people under 18. Furthermore, it also said that boxing is listed by the CAP guidance as a sport that isn’t of ‘moderate or high risk in terms of appeal to under-18s.’
That said, in its assessment of the tweet, the ASA stated that: ‘We considered that boxing was an adult-oriented sport and one that had low appeal to under-18s. We also considered that Jake Paul would primarily be known for making YouTube videos and that he had a large social media following. We acknowledged that he had within the last few years turned to boxing.
‘However, because of his career on YouTube, we considered that he had a high profile within the sport and was well known outside of the sport and social media.Across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, Jake Paul had over 65 million followers. On YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, around three million people were registered as under 18 on each of those platforms.’
