Congress urges Mark Zuckerberg to explain why drug dealers are advertising on Facebook and Instagram

Nineteen members of Congress are urging Mark Zuckerberg to clarify why Meta has allowed advertisements for drugs like cocaine and ecstasy on Facebook and Instagram. This request follows a report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), which found hundreds of such ads on Meta’s platforms.

The letter references the TTP’s findings from last month, which revealed 450 ads on Instagram and Facebook promoting various drugs. Many of these ads featured images of prescription bottles, pills, powders, and even bricks of cocaine, directing users to external apps like Telegram. The TTP has since shared more examples of these ads on X, including one discovered recently.

The lawmakers expressed concern in their letter, stating that “Meta seems to ignore its social responsibility and its community guidelines.” They highlight that these ads were not user-generated content from the dark web but were approved and monetized by Meta. Many ads had clear references to illegal drugs in their titles and descriptions, which were easily found by researchers and journalists using Meta’s Ad Library. Yet, they seemed to have gone unnoticed by Meta’s internal checks.

The letter asks for information on Meta’s policies regarding drug-related ads and how often the reported ads were viewed and interacted with. It sets a deadline of September 6 for Meta to respond. A Meta spokesperson stated that the company intends to reply and referred to a previous statement where they mentioned rejecting “hundreds of thousands of ads for violating our drug policies.”

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