Instagram has been growing rapidly in the past few years into one of the most popular social apps out there, especially among young people. It is a very picture focused platform, with that comes with a very strong like culture. Other than liking their friends’ fresh new pictures, people also like on other contents that they are interested in. With every putting hashtags in their caption, we have already organized those contents for them, and Instagram has algorism to feed us more similar content as the ones we liked. It all seems like a good idea to have our feeds personalized with our preference, yet it also becomes a very popular place to advertise drugs. Recent searches on Instagram such as #oxy, #percocet, #painkillers, #painpills, #oxycontin and #adderall contains thousands of pictures of people showing off about their party life, drug addiction, and with some mixture of enticements for drug dealers. If you like or follow one of the drug dealers account, you’ll then be promoted by the algorithm with more pictures from other dealers. All that drug dealers need to do is to put the hashtags, and social media will do the rest of the work for them. “We’re not yet sophisticated enough to tease apart every post to see if it’s trying to sell someone illegal drugs or they are taking Xanax cause they are stressed out,” said Everson, Facebook’s vice president for global marketing solutions. “Obviously, there is some stuff that gets through that is totally against our policy, and we’re getting better at it.”
I thought this was a pretty interesting post, I have never noticed this problem on Instagram myself but I guess that would make sense. Considering I don’t look at drug-related posts it would not make sense for Instagrams algorithms to suggest that type of content to me. Although I could see how this could be used as a tool for drug dealers if they post something involving drugs Instagram does all the work of getting that to people that are interested in it making it much easier for people to gain access to drugs. I do know that social media sites do their best to stop this type of content and take it down if it is a post they consider inappropriate but they should really consider investing a lot more time in figuring out ways to block this type of content before it can be spread to a lot of people. That way it would make social media sites a much safer place especially for younger kids who might be more influenced by drug-related posts.
Hi Rzz,
This is an interesting post in that, it is rarely brought up in conversation in any forum. I believe there is a problem with regards to accessibility to content of not only just Marijuana, but other drugs as well. From this article from the National Library of Medicine, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027581/ , we can observe the specific case of legalized Marijuana in Washington State. From this article we can recognize a possible solution to this problem. It is not solely on the social media platforms to filter and take action, but government authorities within states and at the federal level. I believe the main issue is that there is not regulation concerning the ability of youths to access said content. For example in some states where marijuana is legalized, such as Washington, there is no law prohibiting youths access to pages or requirements for the advertiser to have age requirements. Now this doesn’t solve the problems of drug dealers posting on personal accounts, but starting with commercial business who must abide by the law to remain in business is a start.
This a larger issue than just instagram as well. On twitter, snapchat rappers show off their fabolous lifestyles which causes younger listeners and watchers to aspire to be them. which causes these kids to get into the drug side of their life. This is causing overdoses on fake xanax, fake cocaine use to sky rocket. All because the lifestyles of rappers is getting filtered through into the next generations mind. Even blocking out the pictures, not even having the social media is not good enough to get out of being exposed to this life going to any parties anywhere chances are you’ll see the use of these drugs. Luckily for some rappers who see this they take the opposite apporach and speak out against. They promote positive messages, usuing hashtags that counter act drug use like #selfworth or what not these are the better messges to be shared across the app.
I personally did not know this was a problem but it is not a problem actually unique to instagram as it is also wide spread on facebook and twitter. But instagram has tried to take steps to stop it by blocking searches for certain hashtags such as #fentanyl, #cocaine, and & #heroin. But drug dealers are finding a way around this by tagging their posts with hashtags of legal drugs or altering the spelling of the drug names. It’s scary to think as a parent that you just think your kid is on instagram only posting photos and keeping up with friends but instead they are finding ways to secretly get drugs behind your back. And because it gets spread around do due instagram’s algorithms people who have no interest it barely see it and realize it is a problem.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90242154/instagram-is-helping-addicts-connect-with-drug-dealers
This is a very interesting post, offering a unique view about Instagram. Instagram is probably my go to social media platform, and I am sure I am not alone. I have never thought about drugs relating to Instagram. This post has now opened my eyes to see that Instagram may really have a drug problem. The app was not made for people to promote their use of drugs and partying. In today’s society drugs play a pretty big role, and especially for college kids. Doing this seems normal to a lot of kids because all of their followers are doing it too. This is causing a negative connotation for Instagram, this content being available world wide is not appropriate. I see that you said this is not part of Instagram’s policy, and it isn’t, but if they aren’t too careful it can become a huge part of it.
This is very interesting, as I’ve never noticed this in any posts that I’ve seen. However, I did see an experiment which used Instagram to see if people can recognize drug and alcohol problems or other harmful behaviors amongst users. The social experiment was done under the name of Louise Delage, a fake model who was subtly shown to be an alcoholic. Very few people, even myself, noticed in the photos or the text that there was any kind of drug or alcohol involvement, which is definitely a problem which Instagram has. The platform almost promotes problems with drugs and alcohol and they seem to be normal.
This is a very interesting post. One thing I’ve noticed myself just by analyzing mainstream forms of entertainment is the glorification of prescription drug use, such as Xanax and prescription painkillers. Rappers regularly have lyrics depicting their abuse of these substances. I think that the rise in prescription drug abuse in teens is definitely partly because of the normalization of drug use. According to research from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing category of drug use among teens (https://www.samhsa.gov/homelessness-programs-resources/hpr-resources/teen-prescription-drug-misuse-abuse). Does this mean that Instagram can do anything to stop this? Most likely not, however. Perhaps the true solution is on a larger scale than simply censoring posts on Instagram.
I found this blog post intriguing the second that I read the title. I absolutely love Instagram and spend a lot of time on the app, whether it is posting my own pictures, liking other’s pictures, or just scrolling through videos on my popular page. I was shocked reading your blog post because this was honestly something that I have never experienced and I failed to realize that on some other people’s accounts, this could be extremely possible. While I have not seen anything like this or even looked up any of those hashtags related to drugs, I can picture it becoming an issue for people who may be affiliated with drugs to some extent. Someone who is mentally disabled due to mental illness and has any addiction to drugs of some sort, might feed into a situation exactly like this. It is really unfortunate for these individuals and even younger children who happen to get exposed to this sort of content out of curiosity. In the long run, those who are curious about these drugs can look them up on Instagram and then eventually see this type of content on a day-to-day basis. Even just by seeing it on their popular page can influence them in a negative light. I included the article below because it related to this topic and gave some insight into the statistics of how Instagram negatively affects teens. https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/instagram-ranked-worst-for-mental-health-in-teen-survey/
For someone who is not concerned about drugs in my own individual life, I feel like this would not be an issue of mine. I say this because other people who are uninterested in drugs will also be avoiding this content unintentionally. Although Instagram does its best in attempts keep the app a safe environment, I believe that it is also up to the people who use this app to make more of an effort to report it or mark it as spam.
I have never experienced this personally when using Instagram but I can see how this could be possible because of the features that try to show you posts they think you would like. This reminds me of the assignment we had regarding echo chambers in social media. Sometimes It can take only one or two likes until your feed is filled with similar posts. I believe even clicking on a post can result in the algorithm associating that post with the things you like. With that said there is nothing stopping drug dealers posts from entering your explore page no matter what age you are. This is one of the many reasons some parents don’t allow their children to get social media until a certain age. The internet is still not a completely safe environment but with advances in technology I think we can improve the censorship we see in apps like Instagram.