FBI and DOJ investigating Snapchat role in sale of fentanyl and overdose deaths
Christopher Hutton
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Federal law enforcement agencies are looking into the role that Snapchat has played in the sale of fentanyl-laced drugs.
Agents from the Justice Department and the FBI are looking into cases of fentanyl poisoning in which the purchase was set up via Snapchat, according to Bloomberg. While many social media platforms are used for drug sales, experts and legal experts claim that drug dealers prefer Snapchat due to its encrypted tech and disappearing messages. Its use has attracted the ire of families and law enforcement, who claim that these practices make it difficult to hold Big Tech companies accountable.
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The technology gained the attention of Congress on Wednesday when House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) hosted a roundtable addressing the role of Snapchat in fentanyl sales. “We are at an inflection point with Snapchat …something has to be done,” said Amy Neville, whose son died from a fentanyl overdose and testified at the roundtable.
Rodgers and the roundtable called for extensive changes to Section 230, a section of communications law that protects websites from liability for content posted by users, to allow parents to sue Snap for its role in promoting drug sales. The roundtable also called for Snap to maintain more comprehensive records of transactions and communications.
The DOJ declined to comment, while the FBI stated that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of such an investigation.
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A number of lawsuits have been filed against Snap, and this investigation comes more than a year after Snapchat responded to reports of drug sales on the platform by ramping up “proactive detection” systems meant to detect and remove drug dealers from the platform.
Snap is a steadily growing platform despite its declining revenue. The company reported 363 million daily active users in October 2022.