Smoking emojis not the focus of tobacco control

ON WEDNESDAY, some of China's social media deleted emojis representing a person smoking from their platforms, because there were concerns that it might mislead young people into linking being "cool" with smoking. Thepaper.cn comments:

By deleting the emojis, the companies said they hope to help curb an implied link between smoking and being cool. Beijing Tabacco Control Association praised the move and called on other domestic IT companies to delete similar emojis from their social network apps.

However, it remains debatable how much influence such moves will have. Frankly, requiring social media companies to delete such emojis is not one of the most pressing tasks to curb tobacco use.