On Thursday, a coalition of 19 Democratic and Republican lawmakers sent an open letter to Meta expressing concerns that the company is failing to prevent “blatant” advertising of illegal drugs on its platforms. Reports published this year revealed that federal prosecutors are investigating whether Meta indirectly profited from drug sales on Instagram and Facebook.
The letter followed a rare scene earlier this year when CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood up at a Senate hearing on child safety on social media platforms, turned around and apologized to a gallery of parents whose children had been victims of online abuse, some of whom had committed suicide.
“At a hearing before the U.S. Senate … you personally apologized to the parents of children who died after being subjected to online exploitation, harassment, and drugs,” the letter states. “Despite this and your company’s community standards, in 2024 Meta approved ads that showed obvious drug sales, including ‘packages of OxyContin and stacks of unidentified, colorful pills,’ as well as MDMA, ecstasy, cocaine, and others.”
The lawmakers, including Representative Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts) and Randy Weber (R-Texas), who is also vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Technology, were outraged by the fact that the drug ads were not user-generated content like listings on Facebook Marketplace, but appeared to be promoted by Meta itself.
“What makes this case particularly egregious is that it was not user-generated content on the dark web or private social media pages,” they wrote. “Rather, it was Meta-approved and monetized advertising.”
Meta did not immediately respond to AssetsThe company responded to a request for comment but said in a statement to CNBC that its systems reject hundreds of thousands of reports for violating Meta’s drug policies.
“Drug dealers are criminals who operate across platforms and communities, which is why we work with law enforcement to combat this activity,” they said. “We continue to invest resources and improve our enforcement of this type of content.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that federal prosecutors were investigating whether Meta facilitated or profited from the sale of illegal drugs on Instagram and Facebook. At the time, a company spokesperson told magazine that Meta proactively worked with law enforcement to restrict the sale and distribution of illegal products.
But just a few months later, in July, magazine another report showing that Meta’s platforms hosted “dozens of ads promoting illegal substances such as cocaine and prescription opioids.”
That same day, the Tech Transparency Project, a watchdog group for major technology companies, reported an investigation detailing more than 450 ads on Instagram and Facebook selling pharmaceuticals and other drugs, including images of “mountains of pills and powder or blocks of cocaine” that often prompted users to send encrypted messages to sellers via WhatsApp or Telegram.
“Meta appears to continue to shirk its social responsibilities and disregard its own community guidelines,” the MEPs wrote. “Protecting online users, especially children and teenagers, is one of our top priorities. We are continually concerned that Meta is not up to the task and this dereliction of duty must be addressed.”
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