Comment by blacklion | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blacklion | Hacker News Reader

Is it something USA-specific?

I'm from Europe, I don't have FB account, but I have (and use) Instagram one.

I didn't seen any viagra, drugs or weed/CBT advertisements once.

I see many legitimate advertisements, and lot of ads of fake outdoor and motorcycle gear (to good to be true, like undestroyable sneakers and tracking boots for 10 euro, suspicious outdoor pants for 5 euros, better-to-avoid motorcycle protective gear, etc). And I'm interested in outdoor and motorcycle gear and equipment, so this ads could be named "well targeted".

Also not-so-often there are ads of AliExpress (and in last year Temu too), of course, but they are not worse than "everything under 10 euros" brick-and-mortars shops, same cheap crap (I don't say all you could buy on Ali is cheap crap, I've bought a lot of good items here, including sometimes unique things which you could not buy locally at all, but ads use very low priced crap mostly). Again, I'm using AliExpress all the time, so these ads are not completely mis-targeted too.

Never any drugs, dietary supplements, etc.

And everybody in this thread say that they experience these obviously illegal ads.

> Is it something USA-specific?

> I'm from Europe, I don't have FB account, but I have (and use) Instagram one.

I’m the same as you, except in the US. I haven’t seen them either.

It’s likely a matter of scale. Meta has literally billions of users. You and I are never going to see every ad on the platform, obviously, but that doesn’t mean some people are slipping drug ads into the system.

I would guess that ad targeting also plays a big role. Maybe if someone started following a lot of marijuana themed accounts and posts tagged with obvious drug references, they’d be more likely to see them.

The scammiest ads I see day to day are on YouTube these days. Lots of get rich quick investments, too good to be true products, and people selling guides or courses on the pending collapse of society.

I'm in Europe too and at least obvious finance scams turn up on Instagram pretty regularly ("completely safe" investments with astronomical returns if you invest at least ~$10k, etc ...)

Yep, finance scams are everywhere, especially in YouTube (with fake "lecture" from celebrity like Musk), but on IG I seen these too.

I don't exactly know how law works everywhere, but one thing I hear is that US is one of the only places where you can see ads for prescription drugs on TV and "ask your doctor about it". That might provide some clues.

You don't see ads for these things, and you can't search for them .. they are private groups.

In my country FB was the largest marketplace for drugs for the past 10 years, but these days I think Telegram is more popular.. or it's at least 50/50

People here complain, that they see these ads without joining to any special private groups.

It will be strange to complain that you see drugs ads if you join private group to buy drugs.

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