Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
Scroll through social media these days and you’ll likely come across someone injecting themselves with a clear liquid, waxing lyrical about how it’s changed their body for the better, improved their recovery, or maybe their skin.
That magic substance is often (allegedly) a peptide, a short chain of amino acids, the same building blocks that make up proteins, that can be used to send specific instructions to cells in the body.
Some peptides, such as semaglutide (Ozempic) are legitimate prescription medicines. Many being sold and promoted online are not – and can have serious health consequences. Just this week, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration revealed that a person who used an unapproved peptide suffered a potentially fatal torn oesophagus due to uncontrolled vomiting.
Peptide-related content is spreading fast on social media. Which raises an important question: when a platform’s algorithm is actively promoting sellers, influencers and products to millions of people, how much responsibility does that platform carry for what happens next?
What we know so far
Recent research found more than 130,000 Instagram posts and over 230 million TikTok views of peptide-related content. That’s not a drug market operating in the shadows; it’s playing out in plain sight, on platforms millions of people check every day.
This finding was echoed at a recent roundtable hosted by the University of Queensland focused on public health and peptides. It brought together several representatives from a variety of organisations – researchers, clinicians, and people with experience using these products. Social media came up repeatedly.
Stakeholders said social media is now one of the easiest ways to find out about peptides and to buy them. But that ease of access comes without the information you’d normally get from person-to-person interactions – like what to do if something goes wrong when using these substances.
Read more:
Where do peptides come from? We found out
Attendees also raised a larger issue – many people using peptides don’t see themselves as “drug users” at all, and may be reluctant to seek help from healthcare services.
This problem is not restricted to Australia. Peptide-related content is becoming a global issue, mimicking earlier online trends seen within image and performance enhancing drug communities.
And even if you’ve “done you’re own research” and trust the seller, you still can’t know for certain what you’re injecting into your body.
Independent laboratory testing of several peptide products bought through the same unregulated online market tells the story. Products sold as retatrutide (an experimental weight-loss peptide not approved for use anywhere, but widely used by bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts), ranged from 51% to 190% of their labelled dose.
In our wider testing of steroid and peptide products, some samples contained none of the active ingredient at all. Others contained a completely different substance from the label.
That matters because dosing errors with these substances aren’t trivial. They can result in serious health effects.
So what should platforms be doing?
Social media companies do respond when peptide sales are flagged, typically by removing or restricting the individual post or account.
That’s necessary, but it’s the smallest possible intervention against this surging market, and new listings replace old ones almost as fast as they vanish. Several things would go further.
Drawing some parallels, research has found illicit vape content thriving on TikTok with slick, highly shareable videos. Information on health risks was largely absent from these videos, which instead commonly featured themes of apathy towards the law, entertainment, and shared experience.
And the parallels don’t stop at marketing: illicit vapes can also contain substances that people neither expect nor intend to consume.
In June 2026, etomidate, a potent sedative, was detected in a vape sold in Melbourne, highlighting how little is known about the contents and emerging risks of Australia’s illicit vape supply.
Peptides look to be following the same playbook. One fix is to meet people in the same feeds the sellers are already using, with something more compelling than a static warning.
First, proactive health literacy is needed for young people. Platforms already do this for other risks – search “how to lose weight fast” or anything suicide-related on Instagram or TikTok, and you’re shown a warning screen and pointed to a helpline.
There’s no reason the same intervention model couldn’t apply to peptide-related searches, explaining in plain terms what these products are, what’s actually known about them, and where to get reliable health information.
Second, regulators and researchers need a real, ongoing window into the scale of this market, especially peptides.
At the moment, nobody has a live picture of how fast this market is growing, which products are moving through which channels, or where the next serious harm is likely to show up. Structured, ongoing data-sharing arrangements between platforms, regulators, and independent researchers would let us see problems coming instead of reading about them after someone’s ended up in an emergency department.
The platforms hosting this market didn’t directly invent the demand for these products. Right now though, they are the easiest place for a curious 16-year-old to find a seller – and one of the hardest places for that same teen to find something honest about what they’re injecting.
Timothy Piatkowski receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council, Queensland Mental Health Commission, and Alcohol and Drug Foundation. He is affiliated with Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action (Vice Chair), The Loop Australia (Research Lead – QLD), and The Enhanced Games (Performance Enhancement Task Force). He is a co-founder of Safe Pulse, a charity focused on harm reduction for individuals who use human enhancement drugs.
Cheneal Puljević receives funding from Australian Research Council, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Australian Institute of Criminology, Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action, Cancer Council Victoria, Queensland Police Service, Metro South Health, and VicHealth.
Luke Cox has received funding from UK Anti-Doping for a project that examined social media, influencers and peptides. He is also a co-founder of Safe Pulse, a charity focused on harm reduction for individuals who use human enhancement drugs. He also holds several research partnerships with a number of local health boards who support people who use image and performance enhancing drugs.
Samuel Cornell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/09/17/peptides-are-spreading-on-social-media-heres-how-platforms-can-better-protect-public-health/