YouTube and Facebook have an illegal steroid problem: report

According to a new study by two nonprofit organizations, the Taylor Hooton Foundation and Digital Citizens, steroid users, especially teens and young adults, have the opportunity to buy steroids and drugs. other drugs that improve their performance and appearance. Alliance.

After a few simple searches for steroids, the researchers were quickly associated with numerous videos on YouTube, indicating who to call to buy steroids, supplemented by a WhatsApp contact number, and how to use them.

From there, to demonstrate how easy it is to get these medications, organizations have purchased and tested drugs that improve appearance and performance, or APED, directly from a link located on a Facebook page that had been created as an online market for APEDs. and steroids. They discovered that new reseller-related suggestions and ads were appearing more and more in the content, particularly the content of weight and fitness models on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. In a survey of people who used steroids, they also found that more than half of them now turn to steroids simply to improve their appearance, not to excel in sports.

YouTube and Facebook have been criticized for broadcasting extremist content and political misinformation and have taken well-known measures to combat these issues on their platforms. They also have long-standing programs devoted to fighting other social ills such as cocaine or heroin use and child pornography. The researchers concluded that steroids and APEDs are always blind spots and that they are particularly problematic because these drugs cause major health problems and are touted alongside fitness models and popular athletes among teens.

A YouTube spokesperson told CNBC that he had removed 90,000 videos labeled "harmful or dangerous" between April and June this year, a category that includes the use of steroids and many other risky activities that can lead to injury.

"When designing our policies, we work alongside experts – psychologists, pediatricians, emergency room doctors, etc. – to make sure we draw the line in the right place", said the spokesperson by e-mail. YouTube's Terms of Service permit documentary-type publications that may include representations of drug users. There is, however, a gray area in terms of showing people who use illegal steroids or non-prescription drugs, such as human growth hormone, for example.

A Facebook spokesperson said: "Our community standards very clearly indicate that the purchase, sale or trade of drugs, including steroids, is not allowed on the pages, nor in the advertisements, or any other Facebook site, we remove any content that violates these rules and we become aware of its presence. "

Taylor, the 17-year-old son of Donald Hooton Sr., committed suicide in 2003. This promising baseball player, Taylor, had fallen into a deep depression after being abruptly stopped from steroids. He had hidden the consumption from his parents and they later learned that sudden depression could be a side effect of stopping medications.

Hooton and his family now run the foundation named after Taylor as an educational charity designed to inform parents of the ease with which medications are available.

The Hooton Foundation and the Digital Citizens Alliance have sounded the alarm for years: both groups issued in 2013 a study warning that it is easy to access APEDs on social media only on YouTube, but Hooton said that little had changed and that the problem continued to proliferate on other channels.

"They've written some pretty smart algorithms to authorize the publication or promotion of steroids to target individuals belonging to various groups, though they're smart enough to recognize that these are illegal, smart enough to to be able to take active steps to end it, they should work with us, the law enforcement and others, to stop it, "he said.

The researchers found numerous links to alleged steroid sellers, one of which, intended for a European seller of anabolic steroids, which came directly in the form of a suggested page on the Facebook page of the Taylor Hooton Foundation. For YouTube, similar suggested pages have led people looking for sports content to video pages suggesting people explaining how to use steroids, or simply advertising phone numbers where interested buyers could text or call for make a purchase.

In one case, researchers followed a suggested link to a Facebook page for "Landmark Chemicals," which lists several types of steroids and APEDs for sale, and features one of Facebook's "Buy Now" buttons. . After clicking on the "Buy Now" button, the researchers were purchased on another page besides Facebook, where they were able to buy human growth hormone and a common anabolic steroid called Deca Durabolin.

Researchers paid $ 360 for drugs using Venmo and received a shipment shortly thereafter. They sent them for them to be tested in a chemical laboratory in Illinois called Microtrace, which determined that the Deca Durabolin was real, but that the human growth hormone was a fake.

"There is no way of knowing what's in these products, it could be mineral water or rat poison," said Tom Galvin. He said that hard drugs such as opioids or cocaine seem to be more easily controlled on social media, but that links to sites that freely sell APEDs abound, particularly with regard to popular form-based modeling. physical and appearance. In many cases, YouTube ads, links, and videos included cell phone numbers that could lead potential buyers directly to resellers.

According to a survey conducted in July by nearly 2,500 Americans by Digital Citizens Alliance, 10% of respondents said they used steroids, 13% of men and 8% of women. Galvin said that women are becoming more targeted by ads and suggestions regarding steroids, a trend also reflected in the survey results, according to which more than half of people who use steroids the do only for their appearance, not to excel in the sport.

This result has changed since 2013, and Galvin thinks that this is due to the increasing pressure exerted by "influencers" and attractive models on all social platforms. Galvin said it was irresponsible on the part of social platforms to allow this campaign, and that they should do more to prevent it: "if their analyzes are so good that They can know the content of an article and thus be able to publish a relevant ad, so be enough for them to take these things, "he said.

Hooton is said to be increasingly alarmed by the availability of these drugs on the Internet. His son Taylor, he said, provided steroids at a local gym, which was once the common way to get them. This was more likely to be caught than the current method, he said.

"It was an athlete problem, it was about Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, where middle school kids, Olympians and high school athletes like Taylor started to look at these drugs as theirs. models, "said Hooton. "The problem has gotten worse, it's more of a problem, how would the public act if these guys were supporting the sale of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine?"

Follow @CNBCtech on Twitter for the latest technology industry news.