Platforms a threat to health and safety of Americans Facebook actions deadly
The antitrust action filed by 48 states and territories against Facebook gives us hope that tech firms will one day be held responsible for the harms they have caused our society. But we’re left wondering: Why are state prosecutors focused only on Facebook’s monopolistic behavior? What about the firm’s facilitation of serious crime and extremism?
The Alliance to Counter Crime Online, which we run, tracks how tech platforms enable a wide range of illicit actors to reach vast audiences to market their goods, negotiate prices, raise money and accept payment. Facebook profits off this illegal activity from the ads for commercial products that appear in the feeds of users who come online in search of illegal ones. This symbiotic relationship benefits Facebook and criminals, but its impact on ordinary people can be deadly.
We are not speaking figuratively. Consider the example of online drug sales: 40 states involved the antitrust suit are seeing a spike in synthetic opioid overdoses in 2020, a shadow epidemic outpacing even COVID deaths in places like San Francisco. In Albany County alone, where New York Attorney General Letitia James leads the 48-state case, overdose deaths are at a record high. Our researchers and others have tracked how Facebook’s family of platforms have overtaken the dark web as the premier online source for the illegal drugs driving these overdoses.
To get a sense of the scale of the narcotics market thriving across Facebook platforms, consider this: Facebook’s latest Transparency Report claims the company found and took action on more than 5.9 million drug sales posts from Facebook and Instagram in the third quarter of 2020. The report also claims that AI flagged 94 percent of these drug sales posts before any users reported them (although this doesn’t account for how many times these posts were viewed). Facebook’s 94 percent “success rate,” however, means that at least 354,000 confirmed drug sales were reported by users after evading Facebook’s AI systems. By comparison, when the Justice Department shut down Alphabay in 2017, the world’s largest dark web marketplace had about 250,000 listings for illegal drugs and toxic chemicals. And when the Justice Department seized the Silk Road servers in 2013, that dark web marketplace featured a mere 13,000 drug postings.
And these numbers assume Facebook is being honest. Our research, collaborated by recent whistleblower accounts, suggests the firm exaggerates the success of their content removal efforts, so the number of drug posts could be even larger.
The problem is that Facebook’s recommendation algorithms are far more efficient at spreading drug content than its moderation tools are at sniffing it out. Predictive search on Instagram, the number one online drug marketplace, suggests alternate spellings to make sure anyone showing the faintest interest in drugs can find them—even if that interest is negative. Search for #opioidaddiction, #twelvesteps or another recovery-related topic on Instagram and you will be served multiple posts with drugs for sale (even as a spokesperson touts the platform as a place where people struggling with addiction can get help).
Our researchers run daily test searches, and we consistently find that the average Instagram user — i.e. someone between the ages of 13 and 29 — is less than 10 seconds and a few clicks away from being able to buy narcotics or counterfeit pills.
It’s enough to make you feel anxious. Mention that sensation while chatting on Facebook platforms and you will begin to see advertisements for online pharmacies selling prescription medicines at cut-rate prices, some of which are lethal counterfeit drugs. The pandemic gave the online pharmacy market a shot in the arm, with 31 percent of Americans buying prescriptions online for the first time.
According to the FDA, 97 percent of online pharmacies are fake, and illegal online pharmacies have emerged as the main source of the counterfeit medications causing the current spike in overdoses. Facebook actually sells these illegal pharmacies ad space, yet another way the firm profits off illegal activity.
On Jan. 6, members of Congress experienced firsthand how illegal activity taking place on Facebook can have deadly, real-life consequences. Facebook knows its algorithms spread division, and that many of its most popular groups are cesspits of illicit activity and extremism, but this active facilitation of crime and extremism has never been properly addressed by our judicial system.
Just as state attorneys general have begun to unravel how powerful tech algorithms stifle competition, it is vital to also grasp how Facebook algorithms spread and amplify serious crime, and the myriad ways the firm profits from victimizing ordinary people.
The world’s biggest social media company isn’t just harming society with its monopolistic behavior. Facebook platforms are a threat to the health and human safety of the American people. It is time to hold the firm and its senior executives accountable.
Just as state attorneys general have begun to unravel how powerful tech algorithms stifle competition, it is vital to also grasp how Facebook algorithms spread and amplify serious crime, and the myriad ways the firm profits from victimizing ordinary people.
▶ Gretchen Peters and Kathleen Miles co-founded The Alliance to Counter Crime Online.
After a blockbuster scoop from CNN'S Jamie Gangel on Friday night, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-wash., released a statement concerning the desperate phone call House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy, R-calif., made to then-president Donald Trump during the violent insurrection on Jan. 6.
The statement explained: "When Mccarthy finally reached the president on Jan. 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol. Mccarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That's when, according to Mccarthy, the president said, 'Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.' "
That is a damning admission that Trump knew of the violence, was pleased with the mob and declined to stop it. Herrera Beutler made clear that she had previously told her story to local media, but it had not gotten national attention. She concluded her statement, "To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time."
Rather than continue on automatic pilot, the House impeachment managers did what great trial attorneys do when thrown a curveball. They paused, considered their plan and called an audible. Lead House manager Jamie B. Raskin, D -Md., called for witnesses, specifically for Herrera Beutler to testify and bring her contemporaneous notes. The former president's counsel went into hysterics, drawing laughter at his mispronunciation of "Philadelphia." The Senate voted 55 to 45 to call witnesses, setting off a Republican hissy fit. We'll call witnesses too! Well, fine. Perhaps former vice president Mike Pence?"
The revelation underscores several points. First, other witnesses may exist to the Mccarthy conversation. If so, their continued silence is disgraceful. They have direct evidence of mendacious conduct relevant to the impeachment yet decided to remain silent. Second, the new evidence underscores Mccarthy's cowardly, unprincipled conduct.
He had this damning information but did not share it with the House. He voted against impeachment. He allowed a groundswell of opposition to form against Rep. Liz Cheney, R-wyo., for her principled vote to impeach. He went to Mar-alago to kiss the ring of the disgraced former president and has remained quiet during a trial in which defense counsel claimed the former president had no knowledge that his vice president was in peril. In short, Mccarthy withheld critical information from the House, the Senate and the country; knowing how despicably the former president had behaved, Mccarthy kept him front and center as the party's leader.
This evidence is the Perry Mason sort of gasp-inducing moment when a trial going down an established track gets derailed. This may make it much harder for Republicans determined to acquit Trump. (Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell already declared his intention to acquit, claiming lack of jurisdiction, which is rich considering his delay made it impossible to hold this trial before Jan. 20.) The damning evidence will once more leave Republicans looking like soulless zombies in the MAGA cult. In this case, it also reminds us that the House has not had, in recent memory, as weak and craven a as Mccarthy.
In a squirrely move indicative of Democrats' lack of full appreciation for the educational value of live testimony and Republicans' desperation to get the trial behind them, both sides agreed Saturday afternoon to read Herrera Butler's statement into the record. No live testimony will be heard.