Social media giant Facebook is under fire yet again, this time for failing to report widespread illegal drug trafficking.

This is hardly Facebook’s first time coming under fire for the issue of negligence. In years past, Facebook has faced criticism for failing to address adequately issues such as scams, abuse recorded via livestream, and even wildlife trafficking. However, this most recent exposure reveals something more materially sinister than diet Tiger King drama: opioids.

According to the Washington Post, a large group of moderators-turned-whistleblowers first reported this problem when it became clear that the tech giant’s focus was on “graphic content”–not illicit drug sales. Worse, employees who sought to report drug sales to Facebook Pay operators found themselves lacking any efficient channel through which to do so.

This highlights a serious disconnect between Facebook’s moderation team and the inner workings of Facebook’s infrastructure–a disconnect that, left unchecked, could spell disaster for countless victims of online crime.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t even Facebook’s first blunder in the narcotics department. In 2013, several tech firms–Google, eBay, and Craigslist among them–pledged to crack down on the sale of OxyContin and accompanying rip-offs on their platforms. Facebook, despite confirmation that OxyContin sales were rampant on their site, declined to partake in this initiative.

Anyone who has spent any substantial amount of time on Facebook knows that, sooner or later, you’re bound to stumble across an illicit deal of some sort, be it drugs or counterfeit Furbies (it’s a thing). The widespread nature of this trade, coupled with Facebook’s deliberately blind eye, is what makes it so concerning.

If tech giants are able to be complicit in large-scale drug trafficking–arguably one of the less disturbing forms of trafficking found on social media–who can hope to hold them accountable for their actions?

Fortunately, the answer to that question is mercifully simple: the SEC. Should the SEC find sufficient evidence that Facebook ignored drug trafficking on their platform, the company would face hefty fines.

The crux of this issue–that Facebook moderators have neither the time nor the venue through which to communicate these infractions–is likely to be swept under the rug in favor of the big, flashing, “Facebook Becomes De Facto Cartel” headlines you’ll see in the coming weeks, so let’s just address that here.

Employees who moderate Facebook content, in addition to needing access to immediate counseling on demand, require the resources necessary to communicate ALL misconduct discovered on Facebook in a timely manner. Affording them anything less is a humanitarian disservice, and to hold Facebook to any lower standard is to admit compliance with this disservice.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg may be used to playing by his own rules, but a recent conversation between the social media giant and digital policy commissioner Thierry Breton suggests he’ll have to get used to playing by Europe’s as well.

As Tech Crunch so succinctly reported, the message from Breton is crystal-clear: Should Zuckerberg choose to attempt to maneuver around European laws regarding technology and data use rather than obeying them, he will be met with severe consequences.

Facebook is a social media platform embroiled in controversy (just look at the last few stories we’ve run regarding it), but perhaps the largest continuing issue that Facebook encounters involves data–and, more specifically, how convenience is touted to circumvent users’ suspicion. This is a principally corrupt practice that, according to Breton, does not align with European values–or laws.

“I think it’s extremely important to anticipate what could create some ‘bad reaction’ which will force us to regulate,” Breton warned in the livestreamed dialogue between the two.

The kinds of “bad reactions” to which Breton alludes don’t require an active imagination. In 2018, Cambridge Analytica used Facebook to nonconsensually utilize millions of users’ account details for political advertisement purposes–a scandal for which the repercussions are still not fully understood.

Commissioner Breton’s strong wish to avoid similar scandals in Europe is not unreasonable, yet Facebook’s CEO was quick to point out that regulating social media runs the risk of reducing any country that does so to the level of censorship commonly associated with China–an argument that somehow both misses the point of regulation and conveys a severely xenophobic tone to boot.

After all, a middle ground–something toward which European lawmakers have been working for years–is attainable via collaboration, and certainly should be preferable to legal repercussions.

In any event, regulating social media’s ability to take user data certainly isn’t censorship, and with data being both monetized and weaponized more with each passing day, Breton’s concerns and proposition of working with Facebook rather than forcing them to kowtow via regulation both seem in line.

Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs would do well to remember Breton’s overarching point–that just “because something is not prohibited it doesn’t mean that it’s authorized”–and start asking permission before implementing risky practices rather than doing damage control after the fact.

If you’re a habitual Facebook user, you’ve probably uploaded a photo or 1200. In all likelihood, you have a picture of yourself–or your dog, or your kid, or your tractor–set for your profile so randos who seek you out know they’ve found the correct John Smith.

Now, however, Facebook has introduced a feature allowing you to create what MakeUseOf refers to as “the new Bitmoji” as a substitute for your profile picture. The avatar can even be used to add reactions to conversations under posts and in Messenger–a revolutionary addition, to be sure.

Excusing for a moment that the Facebook avatar is criminally redundant–Bitmoji was already available as a reaction option in Facebook Messenger, and it’s not exactly difficult to screenshot and share a picture of your Bitmoji handing out hot dogs (or whatever) and set it as a profile picture–it’s hard to see who the target market for this feature is.

I have a tough time seeing it as anything other than patently stupid, and that’s from someone who typically doesn’t care about other people’s representations of themselves online. Go figure.

From a more serious (and unbiased) standpoint, using an avatar rather than something akin to an actual photo will absolutely be seen by some as unprofessional, and even though Facebook isn’t exactly the poster child for professionalism, enough employers have admitted to using Facebook searches to inform job candidate selections that it’s probably safer to err on the side of appearing…y’know…human.

Furthermore, the use of an avatar instead of a traditional headshot (or camera roll selfie–take your pick) is sure to date you, and not in a “fun parent” kind of way. Avoiding this kind of social media trend should be at the top of your online presence to-do list, if for no other reason than you get to maintain some form of moral high ground when this invariably blows up in your friends’ faces.

While comparing this fad to the Bitmoji pandemic of the last few years is too easy to resist, avatars aren’t new tech; anyone who uses Snapchat at all is aware of their widespread–and patently annoying–use. In fact, MakeUseOf posits that the avatar craze far predates Snapchat’s Bitmoji use: Yahoo avatars, for those of you who remember Yahoo, were popular many years before Snapchat took over college campuses and daycares alike.

The practice of making a life-adjacent avatar may not be new, but it’s still novel–at least to the Facebook crowd, for now.