Meta Sells Guns on its Platforms
The world woke up today to the news that gun listings, including Glocks, military-style rifles, and “ghost guns” are now sold on popular social networking platforms, Facebook and Instagram.
These ads appear to violate Meta’s own policies, leading experts to raise serious concerns about the giant’s content moderation policies concerning firearms. The questions about Meta firearm policy and its content moderation highlight the rules of guns on social media, explicitely Meta platforms’.
According to Meta Instagram guns for sale ad have been banned since 2016, with the company’s policies stating that “ads must not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition or explosives. This includes ads for weapon modification accessories.”
More than 230 such ads ran on Meta’s platforms in just over two months, with many directing users to carry out the transaction on Telegram, according to a report released on Oct. 7 from the Tech Transparency Project and the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.
“TTP’s investigation shows that Meta is giving gun traffickers unparalleled reach,” stated Katie Paul, director of Tech Transparency Project. “Until Meta enforces the rules it has on the books, its advertising engine will continue to be a vector for dangerous weapons that threaten the safety of Americans and others around the world.”
The worlds views Meta as the mother company of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and messaging application, WhatsApp. Users don’t view these platforms as a Facebook marketplace gun online store or even Instagram as a gun violence and social media platform for gun listings.
Dear Meta
If ads for guns are slipping through despite violating policies, it raises valid concerns about why users speaking out on sensitive topics, such as genocides in the Middle East, face shadow bans, story removals, or account restrictions. This evident disparity suggests that Meta’s moderation practices may lack transparency and consistency, prioritizing certain types of content while unfairly restricting others, especially when talking about political and human rights issues.
How can such a platform be extremely cruel to its users? There are children that are active on the platforms. How can you educate and give children the liberty to see such and not want to take that route?
Gun control social media should be informative to at least carry outside of the platform gun control and eliminate school massacres in the US. Social media guns ads should not be an option.
If they’re allowing and permitting gun listings on the platform, then they should give freedom to the users to express themselves and talk about the genocides that are happening.
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