Some antismoking activists claim that tobacco companies are engaging in guerilla marketing by posting pro-smoking videos on YouTube, but companies deny the charges, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Sept. 28.

Simon Chapman of Sydney University's School of Public Health suspects that the industry may have a hand in videos like one titled "Smoking Equals Fun." He describes the videos as depicting "people standing around talking about how wonderful it is to smoke, how antismoking laws should be disobeyed. A lot of soft porn-style messages, the scantily clad women smoking cigarettes and showing how you should hold a cigarette, that sort of thing."

"If I were in the tobacco industry I'd be working overtime to make sure those clips are out there in a large variety of ways, and it looks like they're doing that," he added.

Tobacco company Philip Morris said that anyone can post a video online and denied using online videos to promote smoking. "We don't use the web to advertise or promote our products or smoking at all," said company spokesperson Nerida White. "And we don't think people should be able to advertise or promote tobacco on the Internet."

Some advocates called for government regulation of Internet content, while others said the pro-smoking videos should be countered by antismoking messages posted by advocacy groups.