(TheProudRepublic.com) – A bipartisan group of lawmakers expressed “deep concerns” to Meta in a letter about reports that the company has continued to expose ads for illicit drugs on its platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp.
Representatives Tim Walberg (R-MI), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Kathy Castor (D-FL), and Lori Trahan (D-MA) spearheaded the letter and follows a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report from March 2024 that revealed Meta was under investigation for “facilitating the sale of illicit drugs.”
“Instead of quickly addressing the issue and fully removing the illicit content,” the lawmakers wrote, the Journal reported on July 31 that Meta was again “running ads on Facebook and Instagram that steer users to online marketplaces for illegal drugs.”
In addition, the Tech Transparency Project recently found over 450 ads on Meta’s platforms selling pharmaceuticals and other drugs in recent months.
“Meta appears to have continued to shirk its social responsibility and defy its own community guidelines. Protecting users online, especially children and teenagers, is one of our top priorities,” the representatives wrote.
“We are continuously concerned that Meta is not up to the task and this dereliction of duty needs to be addressed,” they added.
Moreover, the WSJ highlighted an example from last month: an ad that read, “Place your orders,” with a photo of yellow powder shaped into the letters “DMT,” a psychedelic drug.
The lawmakers called it “particularly egregious” that these ads were “approved and monetized by Meta.”
“Many of these ads contained blatant references to illegal drugs in their titles, descriptions, photos, and advertiser account names, which were easily found by the researchers and journalists at the Wall Street Journal and Tech Transparency Project using Meta’s Ad Library,” the representatives wrote.
In turn, a Meta spokesperson stated last month that the company works with law enforcement to combat such activity, “Our systems are designed to proactively detect and enforce against violating content, and we reject hundreds of thousands of ads for violating our drug policies.”
Furthermore, the representatives requested a response by Sept. 6, 2024, with data on the number of drug-related ads Meta has identified and those reported by others that it missed.
They also want information on Meta’s processes for reviewing these ads, the revenue the company generates from them, and the steps it takes to prevent them.
Copyright 2024, TheProudRepublic.com
