# Bots wrote three in four replies to a UK consultation on banning disposable vapes

URL: https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/blog/bots-wrote-three-in-four-replies-to-a-uk-consultation-on-banning-disposable-vapes
Published: 2026-10-30
Author: Roman Aglaganov, Full-stack developer
Category: Research
Region: Europe
Tags: regulation, deepfakes

> A study in Tobacco Control says 90,835 of the 118,756 responses to a 2023 UK health consultation were automated, and almost all opposed a ban on disposable vapes. Officials caught and removed them, but the researchers warn that the next campaign may be harder to spot.

![Illustration: a grid of identical grey envelope shapes filling most of the frame, with a small cluster of varied black envelopes and one red envelope standing apart](https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/api/media/file/vape-bots-1.png)

In late 2023 the UK government asked the public what it thought of plans to create a “smoke-free generation” and to restrict disposable vapes. It received 118,756 responses. A study published on 27 October in the journal Tobacco Control says 90,835 of them, about 76%, came from bots.

## What the study found

The researchers, Nason Maani of the University of Edinburgh and Anna Gilmore of the University of Bath, used the government’s published consultation reports and Freedom of Information requests. The Department of Health and Social Care had already flagged the automated responses with bot-detection screening. They were, the department said, “often duplicated many times and sent at high frequency from a small number of IP addresses”.

All but two of the 90,835 automated responses answered the same multiple-choice question, opposing restrictions on disposable vapes, and they all said they had heard about the consultation on social media. Counted together with genuine replies, they would have made it look as if most of the public opposed the restrictions. With them removed, more than three-quarters of the valid respondents supported the restrictions.

The authors call it what “appears to be the first documented instance of large-scale automated interference in a formal public health policy consultation”. The study’s publisher, BMJ Group, and the Guardian describe the responses as AI-generated.

## Who was behind it

The study does not say. The researchers write that the scale and consistency of the responses “suggest a coordinated campaign”, and they note that tobacco companies have tried to swamp earlier consultations with mass recruitment and postcard campaigns. But they stress that they could not establish who organised this one or why. They also could not check the department’s detection methods, which are not public, and the respondents’ metadata was withheld under Freedom of Information rules.

## The controls worked, this time

The government excluded the bot responses, and the ban on selling disposable vapes took effect in June 2025. A department spokesperson told the Guardian that its controls “worked effectively in this case”. Maani warned that “the threat is that future campaigns become harder to catch”. The authors say local councils and other bodies without screening systems could be especially exposed, and Azzurra Moores of the think tank Demos told the Guardian that every barrier that keeps bots out also makes it harder for real people to take part.

## Sources

- [The Guardian: AI bots flooded 2023 UK government consultation on disposable vapes ban](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/oct/27/ai-bots-flooded-2023-uk-government-consultation-disposable-vapes-ban)
- [BMJ Group: 3 out of 4 responses to UK smoke-free generation consultation were AI bot-generated](https://bmjgroup.com/3-out-of-4-responses-to-uk-smoke-free-generation-consultation-were-ai-bot-generated/)
- [IBTimes UK: AI bots made up 76% of responses in failed bid to stop UK disposable vape ban](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ai-bots-uk-vaping-consultation-responses-1828329)