The FDA has been assisting in the investigation, the newspaper reported. (representative)
U.S. authorities are investigating Meta’s role in illegal sales of the drug, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Prosecutors in the southern U.S. state of Virginia are investigating whether the company’s social media platform facilitated and profited from illegal drug sales, the Business Journal reported, citing documents and people familiar with the matter.
According to a copy of the subpoena reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, prosecutors requested records of “violating drug content on the Meta platform and/or illegal sales of drugs through the Meta platform.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been assisting with the investigation, the newspaper reported.
“The sale of illegal drugs violates our policies and we are committed to finding and removing this content from our service,” Meta told the Wall Street Journal in a statement, adding that it “actively cooperates” with law enforcement, to help combat the sale of illegal drugs.
Neither the FDA nor Meta were available for comment when contacted by AFP on Saturday morning.
On Friday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said the company has worked with the U.S. State Department, the United Nations and Snapchat to help disrupt online sales of synthetic drugs and educate users about the risks.
“The opioid epidemic is a major public health issue that requires action from all sectors of American society,” Clegg wrote on X.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 700,000 people died from opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2022.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
