SAN FRANCISCO:
Members of Congress on Thursday requested Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to offer them particulars about advertisements for opioids and different illicit medicine on the tech titan’s platform. A letter signed by 19 lawmakers pressed for particulars about such advertisements, given disturbing stories from the Tech Transparency Challenge and the The Wall Road Journal.
“Meta seems to have continued to shirk its social duty and defy its personal group tips,” the letter stated. “What is especially egregious about this case is that it was not user-generated content material on the darkish net or non-public social media pages, however somewhat ads accepted and monetized by Meta.”
The Tech Transparency Challenge reported in March that it had discovered greater than 450 advertisements on Instagram and Fb promoting quite a lot of unlawful medicine. Lots of the advertisements “made no secret of their intentions,” displaying images of prescription drug bottles or bricks of cocaine and inspiring folks to put orders, in line with the nonprofit analysis group.
The investigation concerned looking out Meta’s Advert Library for phrases akin to “OxyContin,” “Vicodin” and “pure cocaine,” TTP reported.
The letter from members of Congress to Zuckerberg requested for solutions from Zuckerberg by September 6. The questions included what number of illicit drug advertisements Meta ran on its platform, what it did about them and whether or not viewers had been focused by these advertisements based mostly on their private well being data.
Meta deliberate to answer the letter.
“Drug traffickers are criminals who function throughout a number of platforms and communities, which is why we work with regulation enforcement to assist fight this exercise,” a Meta spokesperson stated in response to a AFP inquiry. “Our techniques are designed to proactively detect and implement violative content material, and we now have rejected lots of of hundreds of advertisements for violating our drug insurance policies.”
Meta continues to spend money on bettering its skill to detect illicit drug advertisements, the spokesperson added.
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