Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged earlier this year that his platforms would do a better job protecting children. But it turns out that never happened, because both Facebook and Instagram have been allowing advertisements for illegal drugs to be placed on their platforms. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged earlier this year that his platform would do a better job protecting children. But it turns out that wasn’t exactly true, and it never happened because of both Facebook and Instagram have been allowing advertisements for illegal drugs to be placed on their platforms. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about this. Don’t get me started on the topic of Meta algorithms and their ad system. But go ahead. We gotta talk about this. There’s so much more than this part.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is, it’s utter insanity at this point. And what lawmakers have said, you got a group of, I think 19 lawmakers that are demanding answers from Zuckerberg and the rest of the leadership at Meta as to why there have been hundreds of ads between Facebook and Instagram for drug dealers. They’re selling cocaine, they’re selling fentanyl, they’re selling heroin, and they’re just running these ads. Facebook and Instagram are approving them and saying, yeah, sure, it’s fine. You go click on this ad, go buy your cocaine if you want to. We don’t have a problem with that here at Meta, but God forbid you try to actually put an ad out for something that could save people’s lives, then you got a real issue on your hands.
Mike Papantonio: Well, there’s a grand jury probe, and you know what, if I was the prosecutor on the grand jury probe, I can promise you I would get a bill on this one. And you know what, the thing about it is we think, okay, well this isn’t really Meta. This is some dark web, right? Oh, the drugs are only, no, they’re not. The drugs are sold on Meta, as you point out, cocaine, heroin, you name it, it’s available on Meta. Facebook, you can find it. Instagram, you can find it. Democrats are strong on this, man. They’re going after ’em and they should. The Democrats are raising hell along with about a half a dozen from what I can see, Tim Walberg from Michigan, Castor from Florida, they’re leading this up in a really strong kind of way. I haven’t heard a good excuse, have you?
Farron Cousins: No.
Mike Papantonio: I haven’t heard anything other than the same thing we hear, oh, it’s the algorithms. Okay, let me tell a quick story here to put this in perspective. Last week we put out a story that told about Johnson & Johnson killing women with a product that they were making, baby powder that had asbestos in it, and a whole host of other bad chemicals. Killed women, a horrible death with cancer. Okay. We put that out on Facebook and even though there has been half a dozen trials where the jury came back and said, hell yes, this stuff killed those women, even after 11 judges said, hell yes, this stuff killed women. We were told we couldn’t put the ad out there, we couldn’t put the message out there because it didn’t reach their standards. Okay. Didn’t reach their standards. This was a story about a corporation killing women, where the proof is overwhelming.
There’s not even, nobody’s even asking questions about it anymore. Yes, it kills women. So they told us, oh, we can’t do that. You know what really happened? Johnson & Johnson called them, they complained and they said, take this off the air, and that’s what happened. But here you’ve got Meta, you’ve got Instagram and Facebook that are selling drugs that, oh, by the way, are causing overdoses. They have case after case. Here’s Elijah Ott, 15-year-old, case that they’re using as kind of the headline case here. Bought his drugs from Instagram and overdosed. And when they were approached by it, it was like, oh, gee whiz, it’s not really us. No, it is really them. And Zuckerberg knows exactly what’s happening. Management knows exactly what’s happening. And we’re so tired of hearing our algorithms did it, you know. Hire enough people to make this work. Isn’t that what they do?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And just to kind of build upon your story there, it’s not like this was being run as an ad either. This was just a promotion to allow it to reach more people as an educational FYI piece. Just to educate people like, hey, here’s what’s happened with this case. Here’s where it stands so far. Here’s what’s happening with their so-called bankruptcy. That’s it. It was an educational informational piece, and Facebook, Meta, said, no. This somehow violates our standards.
Mike Papantonio: Do you know why? Because the people they have doing it are so freaking stupid that they have no life experience. They probably don’t even read news like that. And so these idiots, I don’t know what their ages are, but they’re people that don’t have any notion at all about what’s happening around their world. And so they look at it, they get a call from Johnson & Johnson saying, take this down, or we’re gonna sue you. And they take it down. There’s nothing to sue. I gotta tell you something. This is just an example of how dysfunctional social media’s becoming, and this story right here, they’re gonna break some eggs on this story.
Farron Cousins: I hope they do. This is far more serious than I think people realize what’s happening here. The fact that it was allowed to go through it all, let alone more than 450 instances, that the Wall Street Journal alone found 450 different advertisements for illegal drugs.
Mike Papantonio: Guardian, Wall Street Journal, a whole host of ’em are finding these stories, and Meta continues to do business just like this. Now we’re gonna post this article, we’re gonna post this story. Matter of fact, we’re gonna promote this story on their own site. I’m anxious to see what they do with it. What idiot that has no world experience is gonna make the decision, gee, that’s slanderous. We can’t say that. They’re lying. Like that’s not true, because they don’t have enough life experience and world experience to even know what the hell is happening around them.
