INSTAGRAM – The new Silk Road of the internetVentureBeat goes on to give the example of ease of search for the drugs.
As per the VentureBeat blog, the drugs are being sold across the internet by the sellers by mixing them up with the thousands of photo and video posts. The drug mafia have a large market free of legal hassles as Instagram has around 200 million and growing active users. These posts are not even blurred, age-gate or sequestered for normal users. This means that even those who are not into drugs can come across these images selling the drugs. This brand of market is growing and growing exponentially but Facebook, the Instagram’s owner has not even publicly acknowledged it.
VentureBeat goes on to give the example of ease of search for the drugs.
It also says that the drugs sales are in no way incidental or isolated. A typical drug search result throws up hundreds of results indicating how deeply this problem has penetrated Instagram. The drug sellers are using innovative methods to reach out to their customers. VentureBeat reached out to Facebook pointing them to this illegal use of Instagram for drug sales. However, Facebook’s comment was reactive and stereotypical one. By bringing this drug abuse of Instagram to the notice of general users as well as Facebook, VentureBeat has done a great service. Now it remains to be seen is how Instagram and Facebook deal with this new age Silk Road type problem they have on their hands. Another question is how do the law enforcement authorities deal with this new problem. Resource : VentureBeat
