A bipartisan group of lawmakers letter The company expressed “deep concern” to Meta on Thursday about reports that it continues to promote ads for illegal drugs on its platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp.
The letter, led by Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Kathy Kastor (D-Fla.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), came after The Wall Street Journal first reported in March 2024 that Mehta was under investigation for “facilitating the sale of illegal drugs.”
“Instead of addressing this issue swiftly and removing the illegal content altogether,” the lawmakers wrote in the Journal. Reported On July 31, Meta again reported that it had “run ads on Facebook and Instagram directing users to online marketplaces for illegal drugs.”
of Technology Transparency Project The company recently reported that it had found more than 450 ads selling medicines and other medical products on these platforms in the past few months.
“Meta appears to be evading social responsibility and continuing to ignore its community guidelines. Protecting online users, especially children and teens, is one of our top priorities,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter signed by 19 lawmakers.
“We remain concerned about Mehta’s failure to perform his duties and this dereliction of duty needs to be addressed,” they continued.
Meta uses artificial intelligence to moderate content, but its tools were unable to detect pharmaceutical ads that circumvented the system, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Wall Street Journal found an ad from last month that read, “Order Now” along with a photo of a yellow powder arranged to form the letters for “DMT,” a hallucinogenic drug.
The lawmakers said it was “particularly egregious” that the ads were “approved and monetized by Meta.”
“Many of these ads contained explicit references to illegal drugs in their titles, descriptions, photos, and advertiser account names, which researchers and journalists from The Wall Street Journal and the Tech Transparency Project could easily find using Meta’s ad library,” the lawmakers wrote. “But they appear to have gone undetected or ignored by Meta’s internal processes.”
A Mehta spokesperson referred The Hill to a statement the company provided to The Wall Street Journal last month, in which the spokesperson said the company was working with law enforcement to combat the practice.
“Our systems are designed to proactively detect and police violating content, and we have rejected hundreds of thousands of ads for violating our drug policies. We will continue to dedicate resources to further enforcing this type of content. Our hearts go out to those suffering the devastating consequences of this epidemic. We need all of us to work together to stop it,” the spokesperson said.
The lawmakers noted that Meta has repeatedly opposed efforts to strengthen data privacy protections for its users, arguing that it would “significantly disrupt the personalization offered,” the lawmakers wrote.
“If the personalization you’re offering is pushing illegal drug advertising to vulnerable Americans, it’s hard to believe you’re not contributing to illegal drug trafficking,” they added.
The lawmakers asked for answers to a series of questions by September 6, 2024. The questions ask for data on how many ads Meta found and how many ads were reported elsewhere that Meta missed. They also ask about the process for reviewing ads, how much revenue Meta makes from advertising illegal drugs, and the steps it takes to track and defend against them. They also ask about minors’ interactions with ads and how Meta uses people’s personal data to target ads to them.
