A lawmaker has sounded the alarm about illegal drug dealers being able to reach young people through social media by using emojis as codes for the products being sold.
In a statement on Tuesday, Las Piñas Rep. Mark Anthony Santos said that authorities have found evidence of drug-related activities online, particularly on messaging platforms, where buyers and sellers use certain emojis-particularly icons deemed by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency as signs for drugs like methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana.
A code cheat sheet sent by Santos’ office showed that some illegal drugs are represented by usual signs like mushrooms for mushrooms; trees, fire, clouds, and clover leaves for marijuana; cocaine with snow, diamonds, or a snowman; to the more uncommon ones, meth with a diamond emoji or a blue heart; and heroin with a brown heart.
‘Technically, all social media platforms prohibit the sale of drugs, but teens know how to find a drug dealer on social media. Drug enforcement units have found evidence that drug activity is rampant across major platforms, particularly Messenger and Viber in the Philippines,’ Santos said.
‘Social media has made it possible for drug dealers to operate in plain sight. They can use coded words, images, emojis, and seemingly harmless posts to advertise illegal drugs while trying to evade the platforms’ detection systems,’ he added.
According to the lawmaker, some social media sites have become a recruitment hub for online drug trafficking, as experienced users are supposedly able to locate dealers through seemingly ordinary posts and interactions.
Furthermore, Santos said that cybersecurity experts have also reported that popular online games and social media platforms are also being tapped as recruitment grounds for another purpose-to engage in nihilistic violent extremist (NVE) behavior or senseless violence.
NVE is being looked at as an angle in the recent shooting incidents in Tacloban City and Zamboanga.
Such activities, Santos said, only stress the need for social media restrictions.
‘Criminals are adapting faster than we are. They are learning how to use the same platforms where our young people spend much of their time,’ he noted.
Last August, Santos threw his support for proposals seeking to restrict social media use for children aged 14 and below, amid fears that the internet is being used by drug syndicates to recruit young people and even engage in drug trade.
Santos said he backs the proposal that would ban children from accessing social media-which was also supported by Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla.
Remulla, during the hearing of the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations on the proposed 2027 budget of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), said that he agrees with the ban.
Just recently, the Senate committee on public information and mass media endorsed a bill seeking to set 16 years old as the minimum age for social media use.
Both moves came amid fears that unrestricted social media use may have led students behind the school shooting incidents at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban City last June 22 and the Ateneo de Zamboanga University in Zamboanga City last August 18 to do these actions.
Three students were killed during the Tacloban shooting, while two, including the gunman, were confirmed dead after the incident at Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
There is a belief that the perpetrators in both incidents were supposedly exposed to violent content online.
But Santos said that aside from violent content, the Philippines and other countries have faced problems regarding young children being recruited toward scrupulous activities, including drug trade.