Twitter Blocks Consumer Warnings On Deadly Counterfeit Oxycodone

Twitter account shakeout puts consumers at risk

July 27, 2019, Los Angeles, CA – Twitter's efforts to target suspicious accounts has a serious and potentially deadly consequence. Legitimate account holders and valuable information are being removed in Twitter's aggressive attempt to pursue disinformation and abusers of its platforms. Perhaps the account suspensions have a more nefarious foundation.

The Counterfeit Report, an award-winning consumer advocate and counterfeit watchdog, utilized Twitter for years to provide research and information to consumers about dangerous and potentially deadly counterfeit, fraudulent, and replica products sold on e-commerce websites including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Alibaba. The alerts, appearing several times a week, attracted hundreds-of-thousands of viewers, including government agencies, news outlets, law enforcement, and industry specialists.

Inexplicably, for the second time in just a month, Twitter has censored warnings on potentially deadly counterfeits and shuttered The Counterfeit Report's Twitter account. Why?

Twitter quashed the warnings after The Counterfeit Report reported four deaths in San Diego believed to be linked to counterfeit Oxycodone M30 pills. Authorities are trying to determine the source of the fake pills and how many overdoses are linked to them. The small, round blue colored pills have an "M" inside a square on one side and a "30" over a line on the other (shown below).

Coincidentally, the pill dies to make fake Oxycodone, and other prescription drugs, along with tablet binding powder, filler, and pill press machines are sold on Amazon. (Insert shows actual Oxycodone pills)

Twitter has some explaining to do. Was this an independent decision based on actual factual examination by Twitter, arbitrary, a response to a complaint from the e-commerce giant, or motivated by Twitter's agenda?

Apparently, Twitter's commitment to free speech and consumer safety on its platform is as lacking as Amazon is at stopping the flood of counterfeit, dangerous, and potentially deadly products continually listed on their websites.

Twitter can't be trusted to provide an impartial and credible social media platform and is failing to adequately anticipate and combat disinformation. In 2015, Twitter's then-chief executive, Dick Costolo, acknowledged the problem in a company memo: "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years."