Snapchat is observing National Fentanyl Awareness Day by showcasing its initiatives aimed at halting the proliferation of drug-related content on its platform and educating its user community. Snapchat is constantly enhancing its systems to proactively identify and disable dealers' accounts. Its latest models can now proactively detect approximately 94% of all illicit drug activity on the app, ensuring its removal before any users see it.
Snapchat collaborates with experts and other tech companies to identify patterns and signals of drug-related content and activity, thereby improving its proactive detection efforts. The company's Law Enforcement Operations team has grown by over 200% in the past five years, and about 80% since 2020. They typically respond to valid legal requests within two to three weeks and to emergency disclosure requests within 30 minutes.
Snapchat's Trust and Safety Team responds to drug-related reports in under an hour on average, and it also blocks search results for a wide variety of drug-related terms. The company is also partnering with various drug awareness and assistance organizations, including the CDC, SAMHSA, CADCA, Shatterproof, Truth Initiative, and the SAFE Project, to provide expert guidance and advice to users on drugs and related issues.
Specifically, on fentanyl, Snapchat has partnered with Song for Charlie, a leading fentanyl awareness organization, to run PSAs. This includes a special edition of "Good Luck America", its original news show. This is a crucial focus for Snapchat, as research indicates that the app's young audience and its emphasis on ephemeral messages have made it a key medium for drug-related interactions, including transactions organized in the app. Amid the broader fentanyl crisis, Snapchat is committed to ensuring user safety and addressing illegal activity within the bounds of privacy limits.
