"You Have a Friend Request From Pfizer Inc." Should drug makers be allowed to use social media to push products? See LINK:

paid advertising is paid for

No, but they have the power to do it whether you like it or not. +2

yes and no--I've been hearing this story for a while, and I'm concerned. I get that it's hard to tweet about a drug when the list of side effects is longer than the characters allowed, but when drugs are promoted without the side effects, people take them who otherwise wouldn't, ask their doctors for them without mentioning conditions they have that the doctors don't know about, and it's much more dangerous.

ideally, doctors would spend more time with their patients, and patients would tell their doctors everything and doctors wouldn't be pressured by drug companies and insurance companies to prescribe certain drugs instead of others, and when people went to their doctors to ask for a drug, doctors wouldn't just write them a prescription they didn't need, because otherwise the person would go elsewhere, but that's not the situation. if it was this would be negligible, and not even a real issue, because what was being prescribed for people wouldn't be coming from commercials, from people, it would be coming from doctors. but that's not how things work and not how we live and not how drugs are chosen for people.

if people are going to be self-prescribing and self-diagnosing, then the side effects need to be SHOVED in their face, we can't just hope that they'll read the information attached. it's playing too fast and too loose already, and faster and looser? no thanks. use the internet, use social media, but there have to be restrictions, it has to be done responsibly

Well I want to say yes, after all it is a free country but after reading the link I do think they should be held to the FDA standard they are held to in other forms of media. Who would accept a friends request from Pfizer anyway?

Yes, they should. It's a free country(supposedly). If people can use social media to push their religion, why not some pharmaceuticals?