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. 2017 Dec;107(12):1910-1915.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.303994. Epub 2017 Oct 19.

Twitter-Based Detection of Illegal Online Sale of Prescription Opioid

Tim K Mackey  1 , Janani Kalyanam  1 , Takeo Katsuki  1 , Gert Lanckriet  1
Affiliations

Twitter-Based Detection of Illegal Online Sale of Prescription Opioid

Tim K Mackey et al. Am J Public Health. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

Objectives: To deploy a methodology accurately identifying tweets marketing the illegal online sale of controlled substances.

Methods: We first collected tweets from the Twitter public application program interface stream filtered for prescription opioid keywords. We then used unsupervised machine learning (specifically, topic modeling) to identify topics associated with illegal online marketing and sales. Finally, we conducted Web forensic analyses to characterize different types of online vendors. We analyzed 619 937 tweets containing the keywords codeine, Percocet, fentanyl, Vicodin, Oxycontin, oxycodone, and hydrocodone over a 5-month period from June to November 2015.

Results: A total of 1778 tweets (< 1%) were identified as marketing the sale of controlled substances online; 90% had imbedded hyperlinks, but only 46 were "live" at the time of the evaluation. Seven distinct URLs linked to Web sites marketing or illegally selling controlled substances online.

Conclusions: Our methodology can identify illegal online sale of prescription opioids from large volumes of tweets. Our results indicate that controlled substances are trafficked online via different strategies and vendors. Public Health Implications. Our methodology can be used to identify illegal online sellers in criminal violation of the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act.

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Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Summary of Methodology and Main Findings: Study of Online Pharmacies Promoting Illegal Sale of Prescription Opioid Drugs, 2015 Note. AWS = Amazon Web Services; API = application programming interface; JSON = JavaScript Object Notation. aSee Figures A and B, available as supplements to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org, for examples A–F.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • Buying Drugs Online in the Age of Social Media.
    Bachhuber MA, Merchant RM. Bachhuber MA, et al. Am J Public Health. 2017 Dec;107(12):1858-1859. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304137. Am J Public Health. 2017. PMID: 29116843 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

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