Facebook struggles to stop network use for illicit weapons sales, kidnapping and extortion

[SecularMotion]

America is a leading exporter of not only weapons but also social media services and at least one major provider is finding itself caught in the crosshairs, so to speak. Menlo Park, CA-based Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has been singled out in the past for its role in serving as a platform where individuals can conduct illicit sales of firearms. In February of 2014, Facebook was handling calls from gun control advocacy groups who wanted further crackdowns on gun sales on Facebook. Facebook responded that March by unveiling a public service campaign encouraging private gun sellers to perform background checks and inform them of pertinent local and state laws.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the company have tried to stay out in front of the issue that its social media platform could be used as a place for terrorists and non-state armed militias to conduct illicit trade. In January 2016, the company announced that private gun sales would be banned on both the flagship social network as well as Instagram, although the ban did not apply to licensed gun dealers conducting sales off of Facebook.

It doesn’t appear that those private gun sale bans have had much in the way of any actual effect, unfortunately. In March 2016, Forbes reported that it had been tracking gun sales on private Facebook sites for weeks in some pretty blatant violations of Facebook’s supposed ban on private sales. A recent article in The New York Times reports on a study performed by arms and munitions research firm Armament Research Services shows 97 attempts at unregulated weapons transfers have been attempted by Libyan-based Facebook groups since September 2014. Facebook responded by shutting down six of seven identified groups exhibiting suspicious behaviors related to weapons trafficking; the seventh group reportedly forbade sales of weapons although it allowed discussions of them.

Militia groups are able to leverage Facebook’s social media platform for weapons sales by creating closed or secret groups, some of which had nearly 14,000 members. Sales are reportedly carried out through telephones or private messages and most sellers are in their 20s or 30s. As the Forbes article cited above notes, even on American soil it’s pretty clear that private gun sales are happening through private messages, like Facebook’s own Messenger service, provided that group administrators give lip service to the terms of Facebook’s gun sale ban by prohibiting public advertisements.

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/05/07/facebook-used-for-illicit-weapons-sales-intimidation-in-central-america-north-africa-and-middle-east/id=68939/