Sam Chapman recounted, “We had pizza after we fell asleep, and when we woke up, we discovered Sammy had passed away,” during an interview with Go Public at his residence in Manhattan Beach, California.
Chapman is among numerous grieving parents in the United States who are pursuing legal action against the parent company of Snapchat following the deaths of their children, who consumed drugs acquired through the platform. He shared his story with Nil Köksal, the host of As It Happens.
“I firmly believe that the executives at Snapchat should face imprisonment,” Chapman asserted, noting that drug dealers have found ways to circumvent the app’s restrictions to evade detection.
“The dealers utilize emojis and slang to navigate around the filters,” he explained.
In a public awareness initiative, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicated that posts and stories on social media platforms, including Snapchat, “frequently feature recognized code words and emojis that are employed to market and distribute illegal and hazardous drugs. These coded terms and symbols are crafted to elude law enforcement scrutiny and the algorithms established by social media platforms.”
In a statement sent via email to CBC News, Snapchat emphasized that the sale of illegal drugs on its platform contravenes its community guidelines, and the company is “actively working to prevent drug dealers from exploiting our platform.”
Snapchat claims to employ tools such as keyword detection and artificial intelligence to identify and deactivate accounts associated with drug dealers.
Giles Crouch, a digital anthropologist and social media analyst based in Bedford, Nova Scotia, argues that this strategy is insufficient, as artificial intelligence is primarily effective in detecting text. He noted that while the technology can easily identify posts containing the word fentanyl, it struggles with the more prevalent use of a combination of text and emojis among teenagers.
“What is required is a more human-centric and human-first approach,” he stated.
Snapchat further mentioned that in addition to blocking search results for terms related to illicit drugs, it is collaborating with “experts and other technology companies to exchange patterns and signals related to drug-related content and activities.”