There were also instances when Instagram blocked a drug-related hashtag while suggesting alternatives to our teen users. For example, when a teen user searched for #opiates, Instagram returned no direct results—but suggested other hashtags like #opiatesforsale. After following the account of a Xanax dealer, a fake minor user got a direct message “with a menu of products, prices, and shipping options,” the report found. A fake minor account that followed an Instagram dealer got suggestions to follow an account selling Adderall. But as TTP’s latest findings demonstrate, Instagram still has a long way to go to clean up its existing platform. Instagram is rife with accounts that violate its policies against the sale of “non-medical or pharmaceutical drugs”—and teens continue to have full access to them.
- It’s important to have conversations around drug use and the internet with your teen because it plays a major role in their lives.
- This is not the first time that an investigative study has exposed the dark underbelly of a flourishing drugs marketplace on the platform.
- “It became a threatening match and they sent photos of thugs with guns saying they were going to come for me,” he says.
- Teens seeking drugs on Instagram just need money, an account, and an address to get anything they want.
- CBS News asked Miles to create two fake profiles across Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, claiming they were 18, but publicly identifying as high school students.
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As an experiment, the Tech Transparency Project, which is run by the advocacy group Campaign for Accountability, created Instagram accounts for hypothetical teens, ages 13 to 17. Using the hypothetical teen accounts created for the original study, our researchers looked at whether Instagram had taken any steps to restrict minors’ access to drug-selling accounts. To make matters worse, once someone follows even just one account belonging to an alleged drug dealer, Instagram’s recommendation algorithm will suggest the user follow similar profiles. Despite Instagram’s Community Guidelines prohibiting “buying or selling non-medical or pharmaceutical drugs,” TTP found many drug dealers operate openly on the platform. According to the report, Instagram prohibits the use of certain drug-related hashtags, such as #mdma (for the party drug ecstasy), but if the teen user searched for #mdma, Instagram auto-filled alternative hashtags for the same drug into the search bar.
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We are a licensed and accredited facility dedicated to providing comprehensive, evidence-based care and education for parents and caregivers of youth. Buying drugs online, especially via Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, or TikTok, is increasingly easy and has become a top spot for teens to buy weed, vapes, and prescription drugs such as Xanax and Oxycodone. Also, hashtags are designed to promote “awareness” of a public issue, not reveal illegal or secretive online behaviors.
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Over the next decade, piecemeal studies began to reveal a notable portion of drug sales were being mediated by social platforms. In 2021, it was estimated some 20 percent of drug purchases in Ireland were being arranged through social media. In the US in 2018 and Spain in 2019, a tenth of young people who used drugs appear to have connected with dealers through the internet, with the large majority doing so through social media, according to one small study.
Transactions are made within seconds and accounts can be deleted just as quickly. While Facebook has historically been a popular place for those looking to buy and sell drugs, Snapchat and Instagram are the most popular apps for teens wanting to buy drugs. New apps pop up every day though, so knowing what apps your teens use and what they do on them is good practice for every parent. The menus provided by dealers through messaging apps and on social media are often lengthy and diverse, featuring prized varieties advertised for their purity and sold at significantly lower costs than equivalents available on the streets of London and New York. However, there’s been no formal evaluation of online and street drug sales that can attest to the relative purity and safety of what’s sold in either place—and illegal drugs always come with a safety risk, regardless of where they are bought from. The latest research from the Tech Transparency Project follows a study by the group published in December that detailed how teens can access drug content and, in some cases, buy drugs through Instagram.
- Despite Instagram’s Community Guidelines prohibiting “buying or selling non-medical or pharmaceutical drugs,” TTP found many drug dealers operate openly on the platform.
- In addition to removing drug-related hashtags, Instagram has added warning prompts to drug-related searches that provide a link to independent substance-abuse websites.
- If you have an adolescent at home, it might even seem like your son or daughter conducts their entire life on social media.
- Instagram didn’t stop those accounts from searching for drug-related content.
Drug content and illegal drug sales
The photo-sharing platform has recently faced backlash after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal company research indicating Instagram’s negative impact on teenagers. Following that, the platform added a ‘Take a Break’ feature as well as other safety features for teenagers. TTP set up multiple Instagram accounts for minors aged 13 to 17 and used them to test teen access to controlled substances on the platform. Instagram, a photo-sharing platform owned by Meta, says it prohibits the purchase and sale of drugs. A new report, however, claims that minor users had access to a variety of pharmaceuticals on the platform. To study drugs on Instagram and teens, the Tech Transparency Project created a series of dummy accounts registered as teenage users, testing the app’s protections for teens.
Buying Drugs Online: How Easy Is It?
Last winter, Megan Macintosh instagram makes it easy for teens to find drugs, report finds found her 18-year-old son Chase unconscious after she says he experimented with pills. He died just over a month later, likely from a pill laced with fentanyl from an unknown source.
TTP is an information and research hub for journalists, academics, policymakers and members of the public interested in exploring the influence of the major technology platforms on politics and policy. The main goal of TTP is to hold large and powerful tech companies accountable. The report also found that Instagram’s guardrails against drug-related content aren’t working well. The platform bans many drug-related hashtags, like #mdma, but when the fake minor users tried to search that hashtag, Instagram suggested alternates — like #mollymdma.
Report Shows Instagram Makes it Easy for Teens to Find Drugs Online
Visit More Than Rehab to speak with a caring team that understands the pressures today’s youth face—and how to turn things around before it’s too late. The “Nutmeg Challenge” encouraged teens to consume large amounts of the spice for a psychedelic effect. Nutmeg in high doses is toxic, leading to confusion, heart palpitations, and lasting damage. Yet the challenge gained traction, often presented as a weird experiment rather than a serious risk. While this information may seem a little scary, having this knowledge will equip you to intervene and be aware of what your kids may be doing on social media.
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Officials spoke with former drug users and sellers and families of overdose victims for the report. Despite some safety changes and growing political pressure, young Instagram users can still quickly gain access to drug-related content, new research shows. Some of those accounts, in fact, appear to be actively selling illegal substances like MDMA, the party drug also known as ecstasy, according to a report by the Tech Transparency Project, a liberal tech watchdog group. Some dealers these days are even brazen enough to boost their posts and pay for sponsored advertising. “Mushrooms and marijuana used to be hard to get and now they’re being marketed to me in beautiful packaging on Instagram,” says one 34-year-old in Austin, Texas, whom WIRED spoke to. Initial studies into drug sales on social media began to be published in 2012.
Then, in the summer between fifth and sixth grade, Little joined Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, sidestepping the platforms’ limits by lying about their age. For years, their days and nights were spent on their Instagram feed, and their Instagram feed was filled with images of girls falling off buildings, videos of blades cutting into unscarred flesh, and soft music framing stylized photos of hanging bodies. The U.S. recorded more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in a 12-month period for the first time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the highest number of drug overdose deaths ever recorded in a year. Looking through her son’s Snapchat, she said she saw bags of pills and mushrooms. “I felt really helpless like there’s really nothing I can do when I saw how prevalent it was, how many people were in his feed,” she said.
When a teen account followed a drug dealer on Instagram, the platform started recommending other accounts selling drugs, highlighting how the company’s algorithms try to keep young people engaged regardless of dangerous content. The investigation found that when a hypothetical teen user logged into the Instagram app, it only took two clicks to reach an account selling drugs like Xanax. In contrast, it took more than double the number of clicks — five — for the teen to log out of Instagram.