TikTok shuts down 2 accounts promoting opium in Punjabi within Winnipeg
CBC
TikTok shut down two accounts last week that were promoting what appeared to be opium in Punjabi in Winnipeg, after CBC News brought the content to the attention of the social media platform.
An advocate for countering online crime said it's a big problem across social media platforms.
While most platforms say they take down the vast majority of such content because their systems find it, Gretchen Peters said she finds the removal rate drops when the content isn't in English, French or Spanish.
"So I'm not surprised that a Punjabi language account slipped under the radar," Peters, the co-founder and executive director of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, said in an interview from Washington, D.C.
The two accounts CBC asked about mentioned Winnipeg and showed videos and photos of a black substance with the word "feem" featured in several posts and in the names of the acounts.
That is a term used to label "raw opiate" in Punjabi, said Kal Dosanjh, a Punjabi speaker and veteran police officer in Vancouver.
Dosanjh, who co-founded an organization called Kids Play to keep youth away from crime, gangs and drugs, reviewed the content and called the social media posts "remarkably bold."
"It's disturbing," he said in an interview from Vancouver, "that the audacity exists there to put out an advertisement" about something listed in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Opium is classified as a Schedule I substance under the CDSA and unauthorized possession and trafficking of it is illegal.
CBC News asked TikTok about the two accounts on Feb. 11. Both accounts showed posts dating back to 2024, with more recent posts in late 2025.
The CBC asked whether they were allowed to remain active because they weren't in violation of the social media platform's policies or whether TikTok had not yet identified them as problematic.
Within hours, the accounts were shut down, with a message popping up on both pages that TikTok "couldn't find this account."
A TikTok spokesperson said the platform moderates content in more than 70 languages and removes content that violates its community guidelines.
Those guidelines say TikTok doesn't allow "trading, marketing, or providing access to regulated, prohibited, or high-risk goods and services."
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