Young people use social media to buy and sell drugs, posing long-term risks from digital trace data.

Young people are increasingly using social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Messenger to buy and sell drugs, particularly small-scale recreational drugs like cannabis and MDMA. This trend poses risks for users in the future, as drug-linked "digital trace data" could be used against them by recruiters, insurance companies, and others for decades. Social media companies like Meta are significant harvesters of user data.