Facebook crackdown on weapons prohibited private sale – BBC

SOCIAL NETWORK AND LIMITATIONS

Milan , January 30, 2016 – 22:23

Fifteen minutes. That was enough until recently to buy a gun on Facebook or Instagram. Age or minors, for the purchase was not necessary even an ID card. Featured, virtually speaking, he was all over. Semi-automatic with the plastic handle pink revolvers with inlaid football and assault rifles. All for a few hundred dollars.

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Rifles d’assault, revolvers and pistols: Facebook prohibits weapons

 

The petitions mothers

As easy as putting a like . It’s hard to believe. The mechanism was immediate: we are linked to one of the hundreds of pages, we got in touch with sellers amateur, they took agreements for the transaction and shipment. And the “game” was made. Now, however, from Menlo Park, home of the most populous social network of the earth, they have rethought. And the product manager Monika Bickert made the announcement: “From now on Facebook and Instagram will be prohibited from selling firearms between individuals. ‘ To denounce the existence of hundreds of profiles used for the arms trade, among the first, had been the site tech US VentureBeat . Then they had come the petitions online platform Change. Even groups of parents had moved while the Attorney General of New York Eric T. Schneiderman gave his blessing. For a long time Facebook has entrenched the ads policy (the rules for banner ads): “We do not allow advertising of drugs, tobacco, drugs, weapons and other goods for adults, “it was the official position. What then were the users (and sold) on their pages had no business of the social network.

Company moral

The music on arms sales has changed only when the White House came to the village. After the attack in San Bernardino in California last December, which killed 14 people, and even after the school massacre Sandy Hook Connecticut that saw 20 children die in 2012, Obama has launched a campaign in favor of a greater regulation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. About to win this battle without the help of Silicon Valley, however, was an illusion. So, exactly how to fight the propaganda of Isis or cyber bullying, the White House chose to dictate the line network. That once again it is appropriate: “In the last two years, more and more people use Facebook to find products or buy things with each other,” said the statement of Facebook. And again: “We update our rules for regulated products to reflect this evolution.” As if to say, we do what they ask us to do. The colossus which each connect each month 1.6 billion users turns (unwillingly) in a company that decides for the moral good of its citizens-customers. No matter what Facebook knows our secrets. Or that Twitter knows what we are going to vote. Now CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey protect us from suicide, avoiding that our eye falls on pictures that are too violent or pornographic, try to shelter our children from attacks by classmates and also to come to the rescue women were molested and sexually assaulted.

The second amendment offline

All solved then? Apparently, not. Weapons ban will only affect transactions between private parties. It will not be in force for the authorized companies that will continue the promotion of their products on both Facebook and Instagram. So if any manufacturer of weapons will make marketing through the social network with the goal of increasing sales you can do. The second amendment (the one that guarantees Americans freedom to arm themselves) is therefore far from going into retirement. Online and offline. But not only. It is still not clear what will happen when the e-commerce via Messenger (Facebook chat that from March last year has opened the possibility to shop) will be fully operational. Zuckerberg will really be willing to say no to trade agreements by millions of dollars with gun manufacturers? But above all: how much longer the White House will have the power to dictate the line to Silicon Valley and the Network?

January 30, 2016 (modified January 30, 2016 | 22:47)

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