SoundCloud, a music streaming platform, hosted almost 3,000 advertisements for strong synthetic opioids, according to a BBC investigation. Some advertisements found in the investigation date back a year, and the site has said that it is a victim of “bad actors.” Nitazenes, which are more deadly than heroin and have been linked to almost three UK deaths per week, were advertised in the posts. Users posted the advertisements as short audio clips with images of contact details and drug names. SoundCloud has announced plans to use both human and automated moderation to prevent this content from being shared on its site.
The BBC investigation discovered that dozens of suppliers are advertising illegal opioids openly on social media platforms, including over 700 posts on Twitter. Additionally, the evidence showed that the nitazenes were being posted from China where they are manufactured. More than a dozen types of nitazenes were uncovered in the advertisements. Users searching for nitazenes on mainstream social media platforms are warned that their searches could return illegal and dangerous results.
Professor Vicki Nash, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said that discovering hundreds, even thousands of harmful narcotics adverts on SoundCloud is “horrifying with potentially a very significant risk to human life.” The investigation highlights how suppliers are “blatantly misusing” SoundCloud by hiding advertisements in tracks, which users can discover online. The new analysis raises concerns about drug safety in the era of social media and the ability of social media platforms to promote the sale of highly dangerous synthesized opioids.
Read the full investigation at the BBC website
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