Shaheen, Bipartisan Colleagues Call on Mark Zuckerberg to Remove and Prevent Ads for Illicit Drugs on Meta Platforms
**Shaheen is building on her Cooper Davis Act and leading the push to crack down on drug trafficking through social media**
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chair of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, is leading a bipartisan letter with U.S. Senators Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) calling on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to take action to remove and prevent advertisements for illicit drugs on all Meta platforms. The letter builds on Shaheen and Marshall’s bipartisan Cooper Davis Act to hold social media companies accountable for reporting to law enforcement illicit drug and opioid activities occurring on their platforms.
In part, the Senators wrote: “The United States is in the midst of a drug epidemic, with more than 100,000 Americans dying from overdoses last year, and an alarming amount of these drugs are sold online. It is crucial that everyone work to ensure these illegal drugs are found and taken off the streets. Therefore, we call on Meta to improve its human automated advertising review and content moderation to address these failures that are placing lives at risk.”
According to a Wall Street Journal report from earlier this year, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) found that Meta has run hundreds of advertisements on Facebook and Instagram that steer users to online marketplaces for illegal drugs. The Shaheen-led letter urges Zuckerberg to support the Cooper Davis Act and work as quickly as possible to prevent further harm.
The Senators continued: “When presented with these disturbing findings, Meta took down some advertisements off its platforms. However, Meta’s refusal to prevent illicit drug advertisements, while accepting advertisement payments that are harming families and in clear violation of Meta’s policies, is particularly alarming. Surely, this is not what Meta means when it states its ‘mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.’”
Text of the letter can be found here.
Shaheen has spearheaded crucial legislation, led efforts and secured funding to stem the opioid epidemic. Earlier this week, the Senator held a roundtable with the Youth CAN coalition leadership team and community partners to discuss the organization’s work to prevent youth substance misuse in New Hampshire. Last month, Shaheen introduced the bipartisan Keeping Drugs Out of Schools Act to strengthen efforts to address the substance misuse disorder crisis that is impacting communities across the nation by establishing a new grant program.
The Cooper Davis Act would require social media companies and other communication service providers to turn over information relating to illicit online fentanyl activity to federal agencies to combat the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit and controlled substances occurring on their platforms.
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