On Capitol Hill, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee hosted a roundtable to examine the alleged use of social media platforms to market and sell fentanyl to children. 

What You Need To Know

  • On Capitol Hill, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee hosted a roundtable to examine the alleged use of social media platforms to market and sell fentanyl to children

  • Several of the panelists focused specifically on Snapchat, saying that criminals are using the platform to sell fentanyl to young people – and noting that it's difficult to track what their children are doing on the platform since Snapchat messages typically disappear

  • The roundtable follows a request from the National Crime Prevention Council, which asked the U.S. Department of Justice in December of last year to investigate the business practices of Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc.

  • No representatives of any tech company took part in the discussion; a Snap spokesperson told Spectrum News they were not invited to attend Wednesday's roundtable

Several of the panelists focused specifically on Snapchat, saying that criminals are using the platform to sell fentanyl to young people – and noting that it's difficult to track what their children are doing on the platform since Snapchat messages typically disappear.

One of the participants was Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center, a group representing 47 families whose children have been harmed by fentanyl poisoning.

“Forty-three of those 47 children are dead," said Marquez-Garrett. "Almost half of those children were under the age of 18, as young as the age of 13."

"In every one of the instances where the children were connected to a drug dealer by a social media app, one app was used: Snapchat," Marquez-Garrett continued. "So I’m here to tell the committee that the death of American children by fentanyl is not a social media issue, it’s a Snapchat issue."

Kentucky Rep. Brett Guthrie asked the participants if any social media platform is getting it right when it comes to stopping the flow of fentanyl.

“I will say that generally Facebook is very responsive to our core processes things like that," said Sheriff John Nowels of Spokane County, Washington. "That doesn’t mean that they are perfect but it’s better than a lot, Instagram as well." (Both Facebook and Instagram are owned by parent company Meta.)

"What we do find though is that people who are using these platforms for illicit purposes, as soon as they realize that these platforms are cooperating with law enforcement, they will jump to a different platform,” Nowels added.  

The roundtable follows a request from the National Crime Prevention Council, which asked the U.S. Department of Justice in December of last year to investigate the business practices of Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc.

In a statement to Spectrum News, a Snap spokesperson said that company is "committed to doing our part to fight the national fentanyl poisoning crisis, which includes using cutting-edge technology to help us proactively find and shut down drug dealers’ accounts." 

"We block search results for drug-related terms, redirecting Snapchatters to resources from experts about the dangers of fentanyl," the spokesperson continued. "We continually expand our support for law enforcement investigations, helping them bring dealers to justice, and we work closely with experts to share patterns of dealers' activities across platforms to more quickly identify and stop illegal behavior."

"We will continue to do everything we can to tackle this epidemic, including by working with other tech companies, public health agencies, law enforcement, families and nonprofits," the statement concludes. 

No representatives of any tech company took part in the discussion. A Snap spokesperson told Spectrum News that they were not invited to attend Wednesday's roundtable.