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September 9, 2024

Dear Representative Walberg and Members of Congress,

Thank you for your letter and for the opportunity to address your questions on this important
issue. We share your concern about the public safety and health threat caused by the opioid
epidemic. We know this problem impacts many Americans, often with tragic results, which is
why fighting drug trafficking online is bigger than any single platform. At Meta, we remain
committed to playing an important role in the solution.

Meta’s policies prohibit buying and selling illicit drugs across our apps, and we have robust
measures in place and devote extensive resources to detect and remove drug-related content
that violates our policies. With this context in mind, we provide additional information below
regarding our drug-related policies, enforcement efforts, and proactive work with law
enforcement, industry partners, and experts.

Meta’s Approach to Drug-Related Content

Meta’s Policies

At Meta, we have multiple policies that prohibit drug-related content. 1 Facebook’s Community
Standards and Instagram’s Community Guidelines prohibit the buying, selling, or trading of high-
risk drugs, 2 non-medical drugs, 3 and pharmaceutical drugs. 4 Our policies are clear that the
prohibition against “non-medical drugs” includes precursor chemicals or substances, like those
that could potentially help manufacture drugs like fentanyl.

Enforcement Processes & Technology

We take a multi-pronged approach to enforcing our policies on Facebook and Instagram, which
(in addition to human review and reports from our community) includes using sophisticated
technology such as machine learning. Our automated processes help to detect violating content

1
Across both Facebook and Instagram, we distinguish between organic content, including posts and
images that people share and branded content; paid advertisements; and commerce listings, such as
listings on Facebook Marketplace. Meta’s Advertising Standards are discussed below.
2
High risk drugs are defined as drugs that have a high potential for misuse or addiction, or are associated
with serious health risks, including overdose, such as cocaine, fentanyl, heroin.
3
Non-medical drugs are defined as drugs or substances that are not being used for an intended medical
purpose or are used to achieve a high. This includes precursor chemicals or substances that are used for
the production of these drugs.
4
Pharmaceutical drugs are defined as drugs that require a prescription or medical professionals to
administer.
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proactively. By leveraging technology to catch violating content, we allow our teams to use their
expertise to focus on investigating how accounts, Pages, Groups, emojis and hashtags are
working to evade our detection, as well as work with experts to spot the next trends. On
Instagram and Facebook, we enable people to report content or conduct they believe violates
our policies and flag for our review.

We have taken a number of steps to further enhance our ability to detect violating drug-related
posts on our apps and to disable accounts of individuals responsible for posting violating
content. This work includes identifying sales of known fentanyl precursors that we received from
the International Narcotics Control Board and building detection measures based on a variety of
technical signals. We also work to remove accounts on Facebook and Instagram we determine
are dedicated to the sale of illicit drugs.

When we find violations, we take action. In the second quarter of 2024, we took action 5 on 1.7
million pieces of organic drug content on Facebook and 1.9 million pieces of organic drug
content on Instagram for violating our policies. Of this violating drug content, we found and
actioned over 97 percent on Facebook and over 99 percent on Instagram before people
reported it. 6 We also work to block and filter terms that we identify as associated with illicit drug
sales, and we continue to review additional hashtags to detect violations of our policies. When
we detect a single post of organic content that attempts to buy or sell a high-risk drug in
violation of our high risk drug policy, we work to disable the account that posted the content.

Connecting Users with Support Services

We understand how vital it is to give people—especially those affected by this epidemic—safe

spaces where they can feel free to discuss the dangers of drugs and ways to overcome
addiction. That is why we support people talking about their recovery or that of a loved one to
raise awareness, provide education, and connect to resources that can help.

We also work to make resources for treatment available. For example, when people search
Facebook and Instagram for certain drug-related terms we have identified—including
information on opioids—a pop-up interstitial surfaces that shares information on the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline in the U.S. Teaming up
with the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, we have made their helpline accessible on Messenger,
helping them to connect with more than one thousand families in need this year.

5
Content actioned is the total number of pieces of content that Facebook took action on for drugs. It
includes both content we actioned after someone reported it, and content that we found proactively.
6
We calculate our proactive rate as the number of pieces of content acted on that we found and actioned
before people using Facebook reported them, divided by the total number of pieces of content we took
action on. This data does not include data on our enforcement of our Commerce Policies or Advertising
Policies.
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Meta’s Approach to Ads

Policy & Enforcement

Our policies prohibit ads that promote the sale or use of illicit or recreational drugs, or other
unsafe substances, products, or supplements. For more detail on these restrictions, please see
our Advertising Standards. 7

When it comes to enforcement, our ad review system is designed to review ads against our
Advertising Standards before they go live. Our automated systems include technology designed
to find images of drugs and depictions associated with the potential intent to sell. In addition to
automated review, we use teams of reviewers to improve and train our automated systems and,
in some cases, to review specific ads. Beyond reviewing individual ads, we work to also monitor
and investigate certain advertiser behavior and may restrict advertiser accounts that do not
follow our Advertising Standards, Community Standards, or other Meta policies and terms.
People can also report ads if they believe an ad violates our policies. Our review processes may
not detect all policy violations, and ads remain subject to review and re-review and may be
rejected for violating our policies at any time.

In terms of the health data referenced in your letter, Meta does not use information from off-
Meta platform activities shared by businesses to inform the interest categories that we make
available to advertisers. We contractually prohibit businesses in the first instance from sending
us sensitive health information through our business tools. If Meta’s integrity systems detect
potential personal health data that has been sent via the Business Tools, the systems are
designed to prevent that data from being made available for use in Meta’s advertising systems.

This is an adversarial space, with criminals and bad actors constantly changing tactics,
determined to try and find ways of abusing our services, often enticing people to other, third-
party services. We are committed to working to stay ahead of these bad actors. Feedback from
our community of advertisers, global experts, and people who use our services every day is an
integral part of our ongoing efforts to help the people who use our services have a positive
experience.

Supporting a Whole-of-Society Approach

As noted above, the unprecedented public health crisis relating to drugs—especially opioids—
requires a whole-of-society approach. We have and will continue to collaborate with others—
including governments, and specifically law enforcement, health experts, researchers, our peers

7
Advertisers running ads across Meta technologies must follow our Community Standards and our
Advertising Standards; advertisers on Instagram must also follow our Instagram Community Guidelines.
In addition, advertisers must comply with our Terms of Service and any other applicable terms and
guidelines, in addition to all local laws, regulations and, where applicable, self-regulatory advertising
codes.
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at other tech companies, and grassroots recovery and support organizations—to tackle these
issues.

Working with Law Enforcement

We work closely with law enforcement and emergency responders to help keep people safe on
our apps. We proactively cooperate with law enforcement authorities to help combat the sale
and distribution of illicit drugs. When we identify a credible threat, we reach out to law
enforcement in accordance with our terms of service and applicable law. Additionally, we have a
dedicated, trained Law Enforcement Response Team that reviews and evaluates government
requests for user data individually, whether the request is related to an emergency or through a
legal process initiated by law enforcement.

Finally, we are working with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), among other
agencies, to better understand and address evolving tactics and emerging threats in this space.

Cross-Industry Collaboration

Fighting drug trafficking online is bigger than any single platform. That is why we actively
collaborate with other technology companies to share information and prevent bad actors from
doing harm online. For example, we are working with Snap to identify patterns and signs of illicit
drug-related content and activity. This work strengthens our ability to find and remove this kind
of content from our apps. As the program develops, we hope to engage additional companies
as we work together to protect people and tackle this industry-wide issue.

We have also worked together with the US Government, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime,
and other technology companies, like Snap, to establish the Alliance to Prevent Drug Harms, a
cross-industry coalition to prevent the abuse of digital services for illicit or harmful activities
related to the non-medical use of synthetic drugs, like fentanyl. The Alliance officially began on
July 11, 2024, and focuses on collaborating to disrupt this activity online and amplify public
awareness of the dangers and health risks of synthetic drug misuse.

Working with Experts to Increase Awareness and Support Recovery

We continue to support organizations working in this space to help educate the public about the
potential harm of misusing drugs, reduce stigma, and provide resources related to recovery.
Recent examples include:

● Song for Charlie is a family-run, national nonprofit charity dedicated to raising awareness
about counterfeit prescription pills. We have partnered with Song for Charlie to expand
its reach on a new online fentanyl information and resource hub for parents and families
in California, a campaign created with funding and support from the California
Department of Health Care Services.
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● The Ad Council is continuing to raise awareness of the prevalence and dangers of

fentanyl through their campaign Drop the F-Bomb. We partnered with the Ad Council on
the creative development of this campaign, which provides parents with resources like
Fentanyl 101 facts and guides on how parents can educate their families on the dangers
of fentanyl. According to the Ad Council, the campaign reached nearly 8 million parents
on our apps in 2023. We also supported the Ad Council and the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy on a campaign, “Real Deal on Fentanyl”, to raise
awareness of the life-saving effects of Naloxone during an overdose. Thanks to Meta’s
support, the campaign saw 27 million impressions and reached 1.6 million individuals
over the age of 18.

● Mobilize Recovery is an organization that brings local leaders together to organize

community engagement for people in recovery, family members, and recovery allies. In
2023, Meta co-hosted Mobilize Recovery DC: a summit that brought together more than
600 individuals in recovery from addiction, families, advocates and policymakers from
across the country to fight the opioid crisis, end overdoses and support recovery. We
have continued this partnership in 2024.

● We are a member of the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies and continue to support
them on DEA Prescription Drug Takeback Day by helping people find the closest drop-
off locations.

● We have partnered with Partnership to End Addiction, a leading nonprofit working to

transform how the nation addresses addiction, on campaigns to help connect parents,
guardians and young people with educational resources on prevention and recovery.
According to the Partnership to End Addiction, in the second half of 2023 alone, our
campaign reached more than 10 million people with recovery resources in both English
and Spanish across our services. It also drove 35,000 people to their Risk Assessment
tools, which help family members identify risk factors specific to their loved ones and
provide personalized guidance on how to address these risks.

● In 2023, we partnered with UK drug, alcohol and mental health charity, With You, and
creator Chunkz to raise awareness on how to report drugs and drug sales content on
Instagram and how young people can get support if they are struggling with drug-related
issues.

* * *

We will continue investing in technology to keep illicit drug sales off our platforms and work to
improve our enforcement. This issue affects all of society, and it requires every one of us,
working together, to address it. We will continue to collaborate with others and find new ways to
collaborate and share information across services and industries, as well as with law
enforcement, so that we can work together to tackle the opioid crisis.
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We appreciate the opportunity to discuss all that we do in response to the opioid epidemic, and
we would be pleased to meet with you or your staff to continue the dialogue on these critical
issues.

Sincerely,

Rachel Lieber
V.P., Global Legal Strategy