U.S. is investigating Meta for role in drug sales

https://www.wsj.com/tech/u-s-is-investigating-meta-for-role-in-drug-sales-574944cb

by bookofjoe • 2 years ago

164 174 2 years ago

bookofjoe3• 2 years ago

dylan6042• 2 years ago

The articles that 404Media did on the extremely obvious ads on Meta's platforms were pretty telling on Meta's lack of giving a shit. I'm one of those rare people that don't use any of Meta's products, so I was actually surprised at just how blatant the ads were. I'm actually shocked that someone is doing anything that remotely leans towards giving a shit.

https://www.404media.co/lets-see-what-drugs-instagram-is-adv...

https://www.404media.co/instagram-throttles-404-media-invest...

TaylorAlexander2• 2 years ago

This is interesting because I have experienced something similar on Twitter. If you mention anything about drugs or psychedelics you quickly get bots replying telling you to message them or some other user to get drugs. I get annoyed at all auto-reply keyword bots but one might think that ones advertising illegal services might be stopped, and yet they persist.

bboygravity4• 2 years ago

Twitter was way worse with bots before Elon's takeover, but it's still terrible.

Another example (bots presumably paid for by hedge funds): any post about GameStop on Twitter will trigger AMC and other ticker bots to spam the comments under that post/Tweet. Essentially disabling comments for any GameStop related Tweet.

mito88• 2 years ago

meta is constipated

fsn4dN69ey• 2 years ago

This is crazy because I kept getting ads like this for MDMA (after checking the next IG story), I finally got tired of it and reported one, they actually manually reviewed it and DENIED the report, so I re-reported and they denied it again. Definitely enabling sales.

psKama• 2 years ago

Similar story here. There was a crypto scam ad including "Libra" and AI produced Mark Zuckerberg video where he was pitching how he would distribute some of his wealth etc. Reported it, it got reviewed and it got denied. They kept the ad.

cromka• 2 years ago

This is a common scenario with them if you report anything. This shows how taking care of the legality of the content is an expense they just save on as much as they can. It’s ironic that they actually give you an explanation that they didn’t check the content because they don’t have enough capacity to review every report. And then they report the earnings they do.

userbinator• 2 years ago

I like how the "cloned cards" are categorised as "Business","Financial Service" while the drugs seem to show up under "Health/beauty", "Medical Service", and even "Musician"(?)

I also wonder if they are actually honeypots --- that could explain why they stay up.

swores• 2 years ago

My money is them being 99% scammers who don't have whatever they claim to sell and are just looking for idiots to send some money - and as with intentionally using spelling mistakes in scam mass-sent emails are intentionally used to help filter out people who might realise the Nigerian prince isn't real, it makes sense to look incompetent at doing the listings.

I wonder if any law enforcement agency (or researchers with an agency's permission) would / has ever do(be) a study of trying to buy from a large enough number of ads to know what % are scams vs. real.

astrange2• 2 years ago

It's remarkable how often my Instagram ads try to sell me Viagra and ketamine.

seattle_spring• 2 years ago

Lots of people that match your demographic must be depressed with ED!

A bit different though, as those are legal. OP article is about illegal / Schedule I sales.

Pokerface7773• 2 years ago

A bit different though, as those are legal.

I don't think it's legal to sell prescription drugs without a prescription...

helsinkiandrew• 2 years ago

OP article is about illegal / Schedule I sales.

Article is about illegal sale of legal prescription drugs - Adderal and opioid painkillers etc.

happytiger• 2 years ago

Like together as one pill? Weird.

cj2• 2 years ago

I get the same ads. Viagra is from sites like hims.com. Ketamine is from sites like mindbloom.com. I commonly see similar ads for Testosterone, antidepressants, and Adderal is another common one.

I also get targeted with semaglutide drugs (e.g. Ozempic, Wegovy) except the ads aren't brand name. They use compound pharmacies I think to avoid using specific brands and avoid FDA approval. I'm kind of surprised it's possible to get these drugs without getting brand name given patents, etc, but I don't know the whole history of GLP drugs or whether the compound pharmacy is a loophole of some kind.

Most of the ads I see seem legitimate and aren't obviously illegal. But maybe getting stuff like Testosterone from an online virtual doc visit shouldn't be something you get targeted ads for every day.

lightedman• 2 years ago

This is the result of data-driven marketing - they know a good chunk of their base are drug users and will actively take money to illicitly market to them. This was already known from Cambridge Analytica scandal. They take money any way they can. Companies that get this big monetarily are ALWAYS guilty of having obtained that money the wrong way. Facebook, Google, Apple, you name it.

Calvin02• 2 years ago

I really doubt that any of these companies want the bad publicity that comes with illicit drugs.

As someone who works on integrity for a small ad platform, I can tell you that there is no way to prevent 100% of the bad things from going through. We are tiny and still deal with highly motivated bad actors.

Fwiw, Google has also had a problem with this and has paid half a billion in fines.

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-loophole-buying-drugs...

ethanwillis• 2 years ago

It's not about want or desire. It's about what's profitable and survivable.

wolverine876• 2 years ago

there is no way to prevent 100% of the bad things from going through

That makes certain assumptions about technology and business model? If humans reviewed every ad, the way newspapers once reviewed classified ads, then you could detect near-100% of them.

Somehow tech companies have convinced everyone that they have a right to automation and an associated business model and profits, and that the right trumps even criminal activity.

Obviously, overwhelmingly - based on massive illegal sales (not just drugs, not just ads), propaganda, fraud, scams, horrific abuse of children [0] - that technology and business model have failed completely.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...

someotherperson• 2 years ago

Probably, by extension, there should be some investigation on facilitation of general crime. For example, there is no way to report - let alone action - accounts and pages engaging in scams. Fake hotels and similar — which operate exclusively on Meta’s services (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp). I was a victim of something like this and the pages are still up and running.

bcherny• 2 years ago

If you press the … menu next to a post/ad, there is literally a button to report it as a scam.

bboygravity4• 2 years ago

That doesn't answer how to report an account or page for scamming.

You can't even report YOUR OWN hacked account as a scam account or hacked account.

Nextgrid2• 2 years ago

The reports are never actioned, you will get a reply saying that the content is not in violation of their terms.

The only way to get someone a moderator to actually evaluate some piece of content is to report upon it in high-profile media. Then you'll get it removed and a fake apology and a promise they'll do better next time.

miohtama3• 2 years ago

It’s now mandatory under the EU DSA Act to process complaints about illegal content:

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...

1letterunixname• 2 years ago

Misleading title. Prescription drugs, but not necessarily legal advertising or legal transactions.

By contrast, the illicit drug trade uses WhatsApp (also owned by Meta), iMessage, and Signal.

lolinder• 2 years ago

In the US, prescription drugs fall under the same legal category as fully-illegal drugs: "controlled substances". The main difference is that no one is authorized to sell heroin, but pharmacies are authorized to sell prescription opioids.

Someone who isn't licensed selling either one would technically be committing the same crime.

UberFly• 2 years ago

The U.S. should continue down the supply chain and investigate themselves. The ingress of drug components like Fentanyl end up everywhere, not just on Meta's platforms.

r4nd_f• 2 years ago

The US should (...) investigate themselves.

"We have investigated ourselves, and found we did nothing wrong." Obviously ignoring the CIA's involvement with drug trafficking, Big Pharma and politicians' friendships with them, lack of accountability in nearly every medical board...

sneak• 2 years ago

7x as many people die in the US from cigarettes every day, week, month, and year as from opioids like fentanyl.

Thus, preventing deaths is not an objective of theirs, obviously.

gsky• 2 years ago

Not just drugs but also Prostitution happens not just on facebook but also on Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and other social networking sites.

Its very easy for these companies to identify and remove such content but for obivious reasons they dont do sadly

seanmcdirmid3• 2 years ago

I guess you mean solicitation and not actual prostitution? Unless they are putting up actual ads for callgirls, I’m pretty sure most of the solicitation happens via more private onlyfans and such.

At least in the USA, as long as they take down content as soon as it is identified, safe harbor should have them covered. Or maybe AI will make it super easy to tell teasing from an explicit offer to exchange sex for money.

actionfromafar3• 2 years ago

AI will make it super easy to keep ads which won't draw the ire of law enforcement. TIFIFY.

cynicalsecurity• 2 years ago

Prostitution is legal in Germany, omg, what's happening. A complete shattering of the worldview.

reaperducer• 2 years ago

Prostitution is legal in Germany, omg, what's happening. A complete shattering of the worldview.

Prostitution is legal in parts of the United States, too (Nevada), omg, what's happening. A complete shattering of the worldview.

fullofstack• 2 years ago

Ross Ulbricht did something very similar. Online profit from drug sales.

bigyikes• 2 years ago

Something tells me you had to be seeking out the Dread Pirate Roberts. He wasn’t advertising on Instagram. Aargh!

plantain• 2 years ago

I get adverts for counterfeit money and NOS on Facebook every day. There is obviously no serious reviews being undertaken, machine or human.

I don't think publisher exemptions let you this far off the hook.

taneq• 2 years ago

What's NOS in this context? I'm assuming nitrous oxide (colloquially, nangs :P ) but NOS typically refers to a nitrous injection system for high performance engines (https://www.holley.com/brands/nos/).

slipandafall• 2 years ago

Now do telecom companies for the same thing. This is fucking stupid, people are going to buy drugs and prostitutes through any medium. Just legalize and regulate already, but that would remove an easy wedge issue and congress can't have that. Gotta keep the people yelling at each other so they don't notice their paychecks being skimmed more and more.

gardnr• 2 years ago

I worry more about the paychecks staying the same size: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

ic_fly2• 2 years ago

Section 230 is at core of problem. And the lobbying efforts the profits can buy.

Legally wsj nyt twitter vogue and instagram are completely different despite clearly being the same product.

It’s insane these platforms aren’t the same.

If you don’t believe this compatible free speech on the internet, post content you don’t think belongs on the internet here and see how quickly the community gets rid of you.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

    No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Those 26 words enabled all the forums and social media we have today and ensured they’d all eventually end up full of garbage. At this point I’m not sure how we’d throw out the bath water and keep the baby.

tremon• 2 years ago

Why would we keep the baby? Is it just because the baby is providing employment, or is the baby providing an essential service that can't be provided by anyone else?

dylan6042• 2 years ago

At this point, we've moved well past baby and bathwater metaphors. If we want to call socials something, let's at least admit it is the opiate for the masses. The people have become addicted to it. It is the number one way of keeping the masses cowed. The original opiate quote as used for religions, but it hasn't been that for quite some time even before socials came along. I know I'm channeling Neil Gaiman a bit.

bee_rider2• 2 years ago

It seems a bit weird, I can see how the platforms might not want to aggressively police bots as like a first-order thing (they are highly engaged “users”), but you’d think actual users would be annoyed enough with them, and advertisers would be aware enough of the fact that they are essentially a skew on the stats, that the market would align against them.

Nextgrid2• 2 years ago

When those words were written there was no concept of "algorithmic" feed.

Those words make sense and indeed worked well when "information content providers" remained more or less neutral with regards to what content they provided beyond some common-sense rules.

The problems really started when algorithmic feeds appeared, where the provider now assumes an editorial role and is able to tailor the content to each user individually, with no oversight nor accountability.

Aurornis2• 2 years ago

Get rid of Section 230 and sites like Hacker News would be forced to go offline overnight.

People like to disparage social media platforms they don’t use, but forget that the sites they do use are playing under the same laws.

If you don’t believe this compatible free speech on the internet, post content you don’t think belongs on the internet here and see how quickly the community gets rid of you.

You’re missing the point. The moderators and/or community getting rid of someone after they posted the content is too late. It would have been up and available for a while. The content would have already been “published” and the liability already triggered in a world where no Section 230 like protections existed.

If you like being able to post things online on websites you don’t own, you need protections like this to exist.

dotnet00• 2 years ago

There are other options between getting rid of section 230 and accepting the one-sided abuse of it by big tech.

blactuary• 2 years ago

Correct. Section 230 is so wildly misunderstood. What it's doing is protecting the owner of a website from being liable for content users post. Without those protections, there would be no comment sections, no sites like FB/IG/Twitter or Hacker News, because absolutely no one is going to take the risk of allowing user-generated content that they are liable for.

The people who rail against Section 230 and "censorship" have it exactly backwards, if they got their way and 230 went away, instead of having specific content removed they wouldn't be able to post anything at all.

blacklion3• 2 years ago

Is it something USA-specific?

I'm from Europe, I don't have FB account, but I have (and use) Instagram one.

I didn't seen any viagra, drugs or weed/CBT advertisements once.

I see many legitimate advertisements, and lot of ads of fake outdoor and motorcycle gear (to good to be true, like undestroyable sneakers and tracking boots for 10 euro, suspicious outdoor pants for 5 euros, better-to-avoid motorcycle protective gear, etc). And I'm interested in outdoor and motorcycle gear and equipment, so this ads could be named "well targeted".

Also not-so-often there are ads of AliExpress (and in last year Temu too), of course, but they are not worse than "everything under 10 euros" brick-and-mortars shops, same cheap crap (I don't say all you could buy on Ali is cheap crap, I've bought a lot of good items here, including sometimes unique things which you could not buy locally at all, but ads use very low priced crap mostly). Again, I'm using AliExpress all the time, so these ads are not completely mis-targeted too.

Never any drugs, dietary supplements, etc.

And everybody in this thread say that they experience these obviously illegal ads.

tsbinz• 2 years ago

I'm in Europe too and at least obvious finance scams turn up on Instagram pretty regularly ("completely safe" investments with astronomical returns if you invest at least ~$10k, etc ...)

blacklion3• 2 years ago

Yep, finance scams are everywhere, especially in YouTube (with fake "lecture" from celebrity like Musk), but on IG I seen these too.

Aurornis2• 2 years ago

Is it something USA-specific?
I'm from Europe, I don't have FB account, but I have (and use) Instagram one.

I’m the same as you, except in the US. I haven’t seen them either.

It’s likely a matter of scale. Meta has literally billions of users. You and I are never going to see every ad on the platform, obviously, but that doesn’t mean some people are slipping drug ads into the system.

I would guess that ad targeting also plays a big role. Maybe if someone started following a lot of marijuana themed accounts and posts tagged with obvious drug references, they’d be more likely to see them.

The scammiest ads I see day to day are on YouTube these days. Lots of get rich quick investments, too good to be true products, and people selling guides or courses on the pending collapse of society.

ratg13• 2 years ago

You don't see ads for these things, and you can't search for them .. they are private groups.

In my country FB was the largest marketplace for drugs for the past 10 years, but these days I think Telegram is more popular.. or it's at least 50/50

blacklion3• 2 years ago

People here complain, that they see these ads without joining to any special private groups.

It will be strange to complain that you see drugs ads if you join private group to buy drugs.

pquki42• 2 years ago

I don't exactly know how law works everywhere, but one thing I hear is that US is one of the only places where you can see ads for prescription drugs on TV and "ask your doctor about it". That might provide some clues.

kmos• 2 years ago

Meta should also be penalized for facilitating scams, such as https://juicyfieldscase.com/

grugagag• 2 years ago

Almost everything META is peddling useless junk and scams.

cameronh90• 2 years ago

So are X/Twitter, TikTok, Amazon, and even Microsoft - have you seen the default Windows 11 / Bing widgets and news?

iamleppert• 2 years ago

I see tons of drug dealers going live and posting reels of them counting their money on Facebook, Tiktok, and Instagram. They have 100’s or 1000’s of viewers enthusiastically asking questions on how to “get a bag”.

I’ve reported them each time and each and every time the same response: “No violation found.”

If anyone is working for the DOJ and wants evidence of their willful ignorance and collaboration with drug dealers, contact me and I can provide screenshots and usernames of the accounts and reports I’ve made.

xyzzy_plugh• 2 years ago

The problem is that short of actual drugs appearing there is no way to verify anything illegitimate has transpired. This is just like Twitter's "this is a parody account" debacle.

And for the most part the people making the videos know this. The platforms don't work if they have to police everything. Proper moderation results in an increase in false positives which paints an overzealous image and will draw the ire of users while driving them elsewhere.

What do you reasonably expect?

actionfromafar3• 2 years ago

Why do we have to give up?

Why is OK with "Company is too large to police, nothing to see, move on"?

Maybe the platforms shouldn't work, in that case. And where is elsewhere, exactly? They are welcome to register their own domain and web site if they want to.

Why is it OK for Meta to make money on not policing their platform? We as a society are expected to pick up the tab.

kerkeslager21• 2 years ago

The platforms don't work if they have to police everything. Proper moderation results in an increase in false positives which paints an overzealous image and will draw the ire of users while driving them elsewhere.

I'm unequivocally against any sort of drug prohibition, but this argument is pretty silly.

You know what other business model doesn't work if we enforce laws mandating anti-drug morality? Drug dealing.

If your business model doesn't work without doing unethical things, your business model should not work.

brucethemoose2• 2 years ago

Proper moderation

I would point to oldschool forums (and HN!), where the communities were just large enough to moderate themselves and stop nasty off topic junk like that from appearing.

One problem is modern social media has (mostly) yanked this self-moderation power from users. And, as you said, they are too big and too cheap to hire enough mods on payroll to replace them.

Another, that I have, is that they make money from the drug dealer posts! If Facebook has to leave it up, OK, but they sure as heck shouldn't display ads or collect metrics. That should be a far more zealous check.

toofy• 2 years ago

What do you reasonably expect?

the argument i hear quite a lot is: No real world business would be allowed to continue operation if it repeatedly did little or nothing to address—or worse allowed the patrons to flaunt—illegal activities on premises. If any business had solid and precise evidence that a specific person was committing crimes and they did nothing, it would likely lose its business license.

there are obviously good arguments to be made for and against this, but its not something that many want to interrogate.

kerkeslager21• 2 years ago

Why?

I assume your intentions are positive, but you aren't helping anyone--you're harming people. Prisons in the U.S. are not rehabilitative: prisons are actively more harmful than unregulated drug use. They do absolutely nothing prevent drug use. However, they DO cause increases in violence including both violent crime and violence perpetrated by law enforcement. They also result in more single-parent children.

If you want to reduce the problems of drug addiction, the BEST thing you can do is donate to lobbying for legalization. We certainly need more research and funding for rehabilitation, but these things won't help if we don't put into action what we already know: prohibition doesn't work.

lm28469• 2 years ago

Many countries with stricter laws don't have anywhere near the problem the US is facing

whamlastxmas• 2 years ago

People with Karen-like behavior are rarely doing it for altruistic reasons and rather out of some sense of anger and spite

epiccoleman2• 2 years ago

The legalization lobby is going to have to really get their shit together if we're going to arrive at a sensible and humane drug policy in this country. I'm generally in favor of legalization, but the latest approaches we've seen in the states where full decriminalization has happened have had some seriously awful effects - videos of open air drug markets in Philly and San Francisco showcase a level of human misery that almost makes prison look humane.

To me, it seems obvious that there's a middle ground between the stupidity of the "drug war" and the suffering factories we're allowing to grow in some of our cities. There's got to be a way to thread the needle and not have legalization imply mass lawlessness in certain parts of our cities. But none of the places that have tried legalization on a big scale have successfully threaded that needle as far as I can tell, and I think the effect of that is going to entail a lot more skepticism from the general population when further legalization initiatives come to a vote.

miohtama3• 2 years ago

I have never seen any of these. What kind of things you need to trigger into your profile or shadow profile to get drug dealers on your feed?

op00to• 2 years ago

Search for weed stuff.

catlifeonmars4• 2 years ago

That’s kind of an asshole move to be honest. If you had your way and your reporting actually reached the ears of law enforcement, I guarantee you would have blood on your hands eventually.

American drug enforcement is an extremely blunt instrument and is very good at generated collateral damage.

thfuran3• 2 years ago

So are the cartels that produce much of the drug supply.

theogravity• 2 years ago

The facebook community reporting creature is trash. I've never had a successful report go through.

Someone selling "account recovery services"? That's totally allowed by FB!

miohtama3• 2 years ago

Meanwhile, those who caused the opiod epidemic, are currently walking free, but still undecided: The Supreme Court may toss out Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/11/30/the-supre... from The Economist

chasd003• 2 years ago

The plain old Unites States Post Office is probably the largest illegal drug distribution ring in existence. I was surprised how many of my old college friends still do drugs and just have it mailed to them.

pquki42• 2 years ago

Be careful with what you wish, I heard abortion pills are delivered this way as well

chasd003• 2 years ago

I didn’t wish for anything.

thinkingtoilet• 2 years ago

What I hate is that if I have a business and allow people to sell drugs at it I will get arrested. If I have an online business where millions of people can sell millions of drugs on it all of a sudden I can't be held accountable.

sandmank• 2 years ago

during 2020, instagram heavily advertised cheap body armor, autosears, and greymarket 'not a suppressor' kits to certain demographics.

the body armor is legal. reporting the suppressors doesn't work because the kits aren't recognizable by the moderators, who don't know how a suppressor works. moderators have learned what certain kinds of autosears look like, due to rap-culture glamorization and media scares, but they're still widespread.

i think these advertising engines have a bigger hand in the political destabilization of america than anyone understands or is willing to admit. it doesn't matter if it's negligent or deliberate.

these days i see drone munition drop kits.

we may already be in the american years of lead

ungreased0675• 2 years ago

Some percentage of those were honeypots, which raises other ethical questions.

dudeinjapan• 2 years ago

Platform o plomo

CM30• 2 years ago

Honestly, it's about time we see a crackdown on companies that act like they're "too big to bother" when it comes to obeying the law and shutting down criminal activity. The problem is that the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon have decided their sites/communities are too big to moderate properly, and have just been left as a hotbed of obviously illegal activity. Like Amazon, which is filled to the rafters with scams, counterfeit products and products that blatantly ignore safety regulations in every country they're sold in.

There needs to be an understanding that having millions of customers doesn't mean you're immune to the law and can just happily ignore all the obvious scams and crimes being committed on your platforms.

someonehere• 2 years ago

Meta has the worst reporting system and I may have touched on it here before.

I was flipping through IG and was shown Aaron Bushnell’s full video. I reported it through the app and a little while later my case was updated. It said the video meets community guidelines and was left up.

I can imagine the same reporting system not legitimately taking down posts of drug sales, prostitution, and anything else illegal. I have a hunch they use some sort of automated process of scanning videos or pictures and go off of that.

I’ll also add I’ve been shown videos of dead bodies in the trenches of Ukraine, reported those, and they say that the videos don’t violate their guidelines.

u32480932048• 2 years ago

"Hey, that's OUR job!" - The CIA and DEA, probably

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

Works where archive.ph is blocked:

https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=915334415082&w=wpBU6M1nmBA...

U.S. is investigating Meta for role in drug sales

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